


All Of Me

by LinkWorshiper



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 01:46:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 53,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3272213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinkWorshiper/pseuds/LinkWorshiper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas is tasked with organizing Lady Rose's birthday gala, but his life is complicated by the arrival of a mysterious envelope in the post, which he's certain has been sent by someone trying to ruin him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Royal Mail

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Thomas Barrow, James Kent and the other characters of Downton Abbey are not my creation. I am not affiliated with the show in any way (sadly) and am just having some fun with my favorite canon-but-not-canon pair.
> 
> Also, also, also: I KNOW some of the songs mentioned in this weren't recorded until the 30's (and some even in the 40's), and it annoys the history nerd inside me to reference them, but Thomas is like the poster child for the blues, so that's the soundtrack he gets. Maybe we can pretend it's the 30's? (Truthfully, it's more like 1927 in this....)

The letter Mr. Carson handed to Thomas with the morning post looked like it had crossed the whole of the British Empire and back again before reaching Downton. Its face was yellowed by the trials of an unknown journey, its edges soft and pulpy from being passed through all manner of hands, though ascertaining where it had come from based on these qualities alone was impossible, especially with no return address to call upon. The postage in the corner had been obscured with the Royal Mail stamp indicating it had been sent from Sheffield, but Thomas was hesitant to assume it meant anything about who it had actually come from. Glaring spitefully at the envelope before squirreling it away inside his livery, Thomas frowned, very much disliking the idea that someone might be trying to fool him.

But though it might have been for someone else to rise early in the morning to pull a fast one on Thomas Barrow, even he wasn't quick enough to avoid the prying, wide eyes of Daisy, who was standing unnoticed on the other side of the servants hall, until she opened her mouth. “What's it you got there?” she asked, setting down the tea tray she had been holding.

“Nothing for nosy little girls to be looking in on,” Thomas retorted smoothly as he picked at a bit of imaginary lint on his cuff.

“Is it?” Daisy pressed with her usual oblivious tact (or lack thereof). “It looks like it's come from half a world away,” she swooned, momentarily forgetting who she was talking to; “If _I_ got a letter like that, I'd be opening it straight away. How could you stand to wait with the knowing that it could be _anything_?” 

“It could also be nothing,” Thomas snapped, growing impatient and hoping for an excuse to make a quick escape. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be one at his immediate disposal. 

“If it were nothing, then why would you leave it?” Daisy asked, sounding impetuous without really trying to be. 

“Leave what, now?” came the voice of Mrs. Hughes, who was entering the dining room with Mrs. Patmore in tow. The latter was carrying in breakfast, a sure sign that the rest of the staff would soon be joining them momentarily. 

Thomas opened his mouth to deflect them, but Daisy once again proved quicker. Excitedly, she filled them in: “Mr. Barrow's gotten a mysterious letter in the post and he won't open it.”

Mrs. Hughes glanced at Thomas, but wasn't sure what to say to both ease his growing annoyance and satisfy Daisy's insipid curiosity. Mrs. Patmore took up a more direct tactic as she placed the breakfast tray on the table and snapping at her assistant, “When it's your mail, then you can do whatever you please with it.”

Hating the focus that was being placed upon his personal business, Thomas caved in and tore into his jacket pocket, pulling the letter out again and brandishing it at the other three. “There's nothing interesting to be looking in on,” he said coolly as he tore at the envelope's flap and dipped his fingers inside. “So just mind your....”

He stopped, his words caught in his mouth as his eyes suddenly focused on envelope's sole content: an amateur photograph, which he only had to pull out halfway before realizing that it depicted none other than one James Kent and that was in no way the sort of image he would want to share with anyone – much less the busybody staff he endured on a daily basis. A shiver dropped down his spine, his chest constricting as a pull on his heart painfully weighted it towards the pit of his stomach in a way that he had forgotten since Jimmy had been on his way. He cleared his throat, hoping none of this was evident on his face as he stuffed the photograph back into the envelope and neatly slid it back into his jacket.

“Mind your what?” Daisy was asking, somehow unable to fill in the blanks as to why Thomas hadn't finished his sentence.

“Business,” Thomas snapped, sure the flush he felt beneath his collar was overtaking his face. “Mind your business.” Then, terrified someone might have seen the compromising photograph of Jimmy or that Daisy would keep prodding him with questions, he stormed out of the dining room, his shoulder whacking harshly against poor Molesley as he shoved him out of the way in the hallway without even a word of explanation.

“D'ya think Mr. Barrow could have a sweetheart?” he heard Daisy wonder loudly from the servants hall as he mounted the stairs. The clamor of the rest of the staff was starting to build up from around the dining table.

“Oh, please, Daisy,” came Molesley's interjection into the conversation as he joined the others in the dining room; “As if someone like _him_ could possibly have a sweetheart.” 

Even if he knew Mrs. Hughes would quickly put a stop to it, the round of laughter that echoed after the comment only made Thomas's feet skip faster up the stairs towards the sanctity of his quarters.

–

With the door locked and no one bound to bother him during breakfast time, Thomas sat on the edge of his bed and took the envelope out again. It suddenly seemed like a different object than the one he had been handed by Mr. Carson. He wasn't sure if he ought to be worried that someone had known to send him such a suggestive picture of Jimmy, but at the present moment, it was unimportant. He hadn't seen or heard a breath about the wayward footman after the fire that had chased him from Downton's service, but it didn't stop him from being overwhelmed with the same feelings that had consumed him on a daily basis back then just with the simple reminder of his face.

That wasn't the end of it, though. Though he had seen suggestion of it upon his first glance at the photograph downstairs, upon removing it wholly from the envelope, Thomas found himself holding more than just a flattering portrait of the man he had been so desperately in love with. Rather, it was also quite an improper photo for polite society to lay eyes upon, though perhaps he shouldn't have been so surprised that someone as flagrant as Jimmy would sit willingly for such a picture. Poised on the edge of a chair, Jimmy's bare shoulders pressed against its back and his arms casually draped over its arms and gracefully keeping most of Jimmy's pride from view. His chest and legs were also naked, suggesting he wore nothing but the smirk on his face. Thomas both hated and loved everything about the picture, his eyes unable to look away no matter how desperately he willed them to.

Thomas turned the photograph over in his hands, realizing his breathing was becoming ragged the longer he stared at it. Clearly he had underestimated how much power Jimmy still had over him, even after all this time. It was then that he noticed, written in neat lettering at the bottom of the photograph's yellowed back, were the words, _'All of me.'_

Thomas was quickly forgetting how to breathe at all as he reread the notation a second and then a third time. He couldn't be sure if the script belonged to Jimmy, suddenly very aware he had never taken stock of something as simple as the way Jimmy formed his letters. It almost made him feel ashamed, considering that he usually took great pains to memorize as many personal habits of those he associated with as he could. He supposed it was safe to say he had been completely consumed with other matters when it came to Jimmy, looking in on every mannerism and quirk that could have possibly suggested that Thomas's all-consuming feelings for the footman weren't entirely one-sided.

A cloud of depression settled over him as his thoughts inevitably started dredging up the so-called 'unfortunate incident', an eternal monument to his embarrassingly amateurish behavior regarding the question of Jimmy's leanings. In any other case, it would have been enough to make him angry that Jimmy easily destroyed the barriers he'd spent so long fortifying with just a quirk of those full lips or a toss of that perfect swathe of blond hair. Except that even in the face of such devastation, there was no way he could ever hold Jimmy accountable for anything – even when he deserved it. Thomas bowed his head and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, a huge sigh escaping his lips. He needed a cigarette, fumbling for the ever-present pack he kept in his coat pocket and concluding (not for the first time) his reasons for constantly being in need of a light.

“Thomas!” The sound of Mrs. Hughes voice was accentuated by the lively knock she drummed against the outside of his door, startling him so that the pack of cigarettes dropped carelessly from his hand. “Thomas, are you alright?” 

Thomas parted his lips, just on the verge of letting out an instinctual bark of denial. But he could not deny that if it had not been for the kindness of Mrs. Hughes – especially in the wake of the 'unfortunate incident' – things might have turned out far worse for him. So, much as it hurt to choke on his natural candor, he swallowed his pride and strode for the door, hastily ferrying the photograph within the safety of his inner pocket. Cracking the door just enough to be courteous without being inviting, Thomas pulled his lips back into the best smile he knew how to present on command and said, “Can I help you, Mrs. Hughes?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said with the doting concern of a mother. “Are you quite sure you're alright? You took off in such a hurry after you opened that letter, I got concerned you'd had some kind of shock.” 

“You might say that, Mrs. Hughes,” Thomas answered, abhorring the falseness he could hear in his own voice. 

“Should I be worried about it?” Mrs. Hughes pressed, not so easily fooled by the laborious efforts Thomas made to seem nonchalant. 

“Don't waste your time,” Thomas was quick to retort. He wasn't thrilled by this line of questioning, despite the fact he knew that Mrs. Hughes would be the last person left at Downton to persecute him for his natural dispositions. After all, she was probably the only one who had heard it straight from his lips the truth of his feelings about Jimmy, though that didn't mean he was wont to repeat it where prying ears might pick up on it. 

“Well, you know if there's something you need, you can always come to us,” Mrs. Hughes reminded him, though it was clear from the expression she wore that she wished he would be more forthcoming on his own. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Hughes,” Thomas said, actually somewhat sincere in his words, despite punctuating their exchange with a curt nod and a quick slam of his door. He turned and leaned against the closed door, his eyes closed and his shoulders trembling with an unnamed anxiety. 

He would certainly have that cigarette now.

–

That afternoon, instead of breaking for lunch with the others, Thomas asked Mr. Carson for permission to venture into town on an errand. Mr. Carson, not able to find a suitable reason to keep Thomas underfoot, permitted it, but only with an explicit warning that it would not do for an underbutler to be unavailable for the evening's duties. Though Thomas had no intention of ever looking incompetent in anything he did, he had to admit that Carson's unyielding reminder gave him cause to respect the older butler enough to reign in his usual cheek.

He walked quickly in order to make the most of his time, relieved to escape the house, even if just for a moment. There was always a strange sense of victory that would overtake Thomas when he felt like he could slip away without anyone else on staff prying into his affairs, a paranoia that probably came naturally with men who were prone to his particular inclinations. He was unnerved enough as it was thinking that someone  _else_ was attempting to blackmail him. The constant fear of such things lingered at the back of his thoughts enough as it was, made only too real by the recollection of the other close calls he'd managed to slip free of in the past. He desperately began a mental list of potential suspects to keep an eye out for – both within the house and long since departed – while he investigated the matter. Hopefully under a blanket of complete secrecy. 

He picked up the pace.

His destination, the post office, was the most logical place to start, and he meant to be in and out as quickly as you please so that he might not draw any unwanted attention to himself. He knew it was the nature of the photograph, which still burned inside his jacket against his torso, that left him feeling so exposed. Hadn't he spent his whole life being careful? Hadn't he worked with extra fervor in the wake of the 'unfortunate incident' with Jimmy to appease the expectation that he wanted nothing more from Jimmy than his valued friendship? Where had he slipped up? Who had guessed the charade? Who, who, who?

He dragged his feet to a halt just outside the post office to collect himself in his usual method, patting down his jacket for his cigarettes and lighter. In doing so, his hand ghosted over the pocket he had stowed the photograph into, and the memory of it made his palm sweaty. How he hated himself for a weakness that was incurable even after he'd taken the most drastic of measures society had to offer against it. Had that been the give away – the proverbial red flag? Had Baxter betrayed him? Puffing hard on his cigarette, his mind turned, analyzing and reanalyzing every potential clue, real and imagined. He banged a fist into the stonework of the wall behind him, resolutely thinking to himself, “No one will use Jimmy against me. I simply won't  _allow_ it.” 

He focused on his breathing, cloudy with tobacco as it was, and willed himself to a more level state. Flicking the cigarette butt into the street, he pulled his shoulders back and tugged at the lapels of his coat to straighten it before turning to enter the post office.

Not quite sure how to go about his business, he waited in line to speak to the postmaster at the counter. Putting on the aloof air he usually carried back at the house, he approached when it was his turn and asked, “How might one go about finding the origin of a letter with no return?”

“You might look at the postmark,” the postmaster replied in a bored tone that suggested the only thing that kept him upright was the promise of a pint at the end of the day. He was a pudgy, pale man, with hair that wisped around his head with the lightness of cotton and watery blue irises that were barely a shade deeper than the white that surrounded them. 

Thomas couldn't help but roll his eyes. “Supposing I'm clever enough to have worked that bit out for m'self,” he shot back, sarcasm dripping thickly from his tongue.

The postmaster seemed nonplussed. “You might look in on whoever carries the mail, then,” came the monotone reply.

“In _Sheffield_?” Thomas asked incredulously, still unable to keep his tone from cracking with dryness. “In case you were wondering, some of us have jobs we actually _tend_ to.” 

“Well, what do you expect? A Royal messenger to handle your personal business?” the postmaster snapped, finally illustrating that he was capable of some semblance of personality. Thomas liked to think he was able to bring the true colors out of others with enviable practice. 

“Maybe an address for the post office in Sheffield would suffice,” Thomas suggested wryly. “Or someone I might ring down there,” he added as an afterthought, still not entirely used to the notion of telephoning. 

The postmaster made a sound that reminded Thomas a bit of a frog, which made his lips twist into a shape of smug victory as he waited for the ghost of a man to look up the requested information for him. He drummed his fingers against the countertop as he waited for the postmaster to copy it down for him, and then ferreted it away neatly in the same pocket he kept his cigarettes before turning on his heel to go. He dared not risk disrupting the sanctuary of the inner jacket pocket where he'd stashed Jimmy.

–

His walk back to the house was even more rushed, though it wasn't the time that made his movements so hurried. He was no sooner through the door with his overcoat off before Mr. Carson descended on him with his usual abruptness.

“I hope you saw to all your business,” Mr. Carson said, his hulking form blocking Thomas from the servants hall. “Because you soon won't have time for any of your usual foolishness.” His voice was tight as he looked Thomas up and down in a way that the underbutler couldn't help but assume was rooted in disgust. Though Mr. Carson generally acted as though things that he found unseemly simply did not exist, Thomas knew better than to think that Mr. Carson was as flippant about his orientation as some of the others had been. It was no secret that Mr. Carson would have much preferred if Thomas had been sent on his way instead of Jimmy – and far sooner than even that, if at all. 

“How's that?” Thomas asked, unruffled despite himself. Thomas would sooner die than give Mr. Carson the satisfaction of thinking there was anything he was unable to live up to. 

“Next weekend is Lady Rose's birthday and she is giving a party at Downton,” Mr. Carson announced with the solemnity of a monk revering his sacred vows. “As underbutler, seeing to the arrangements falls to _you_ , Mr. Barrow.” He paused long enough to give Thomas a lingering glare before adding, “ _All_ the arrangements, I might add. No matter how frivolous or... or _American_ they may seem to be.” 

“Of course, Mr. Carson,” Thomas said with a smirk, unable to keep himself from reveling in Mr. Carson's inability to manage his distaste for anything newer than 1895. It filled him with a sort of temporary satisfaction that there was something Mr. Carson hated at least as much as him. In fact, it almost pleased Thomas enough that he thought he might take extra initiative to help Lady Rose throw a party Mr. Carson was sure to abhor every second of, especially considering the stuffy butler would be forced to act otherwise. It was a grim form of retaliation as far as Thomas was concerned, but he certainly wasn't above using the opportunity for his own machinations, petty as they might be. Such was all Thomas had to push him through his daily drudgery. 

“Very good, Thomas,” Mr. Carson was saying, cutting through the whirring motion of Thomas's thoughts. “She will ring for you at some point this afternoon, so it would serve you to be on your toes.” 

Pulling his face into a mask of happy servitude, Thomas replied coolly, “As if I'm ever anything but.” Then he sidestepped Mr. Carson and turned so that he might edge himself out of the tight entrance hall. He hated not being able to leave a conversation on his own terms.

Thomas spent the next two hours seeing to his usual afternoon duties. First, he looked in on Mrs. Patmore and her staff as they prepared tea and finger sandwiches for the family, glibly offering a few unwanted remarks about their performance before turning on his heel to go. Then he made a round of the house, checking up on the whereabouts of all the hallboys and maids, who also were subjected to his pointed critiquing on the handling of their daily chores. After that, he headed for the dining room to make sure that the footmen were properly handling the setting of the table for dinner and was about to head back downstairs when an overtly cheerful voice called his name.

His feet came to an abrupt halt as soon as he recognized it to be Lady Rose. Flipping around, his shoulders straight and his hands folded properly behind his back, he gave her a stiff nod and waited for her to state her business. He didn't have to wait long.

Lady Rose was still young and prone to excited chatter, which Thomas found to be particularly grating. But regardless, he put on a good show of professionalism and self-control. “Oh, Barrow, there you are! Has Mr. Carson informed you about my birthday gala?” she asked, clapping her hands together in a fashion that probably would have been considered rude. “I  _do_ appreciate that he's loaned you to me for the preparations, I must say. It would be simply  _awful_ to have to manage all that music and food and dancing on my own. And so many  _drinks_ ! Do you like cocktails, Barrow?” 

There was a moment of heavy silence during which Lady Rose watched Thomas with wide, expectant eyes and Thomas faltered, taking just a few seconds too long to realize that Lady Rose actually wanted an answer from him. He thrust his shoulders further back and lifted his chin in a poor attempt at effortlessness as he said, “I can't say I've tried many, m'lady.”

“Well, you certainly must do. It's much better than boring old brandy and wine,” she enthused with a familiarity that Thomas suspected she showed towards everyone she encountered. Thomas had the unsettling feeling that she was working hard to keep herself from grabbing him by the elbow like bosom buddies, which was something he avoided even with the downstairs staff, nevermind his employer. She balled her hands into fists, practically bursting as she continued: “Are you quite busy right now? Can you walk with me to the drawing room, Barrow? Shall I call you Barrow?” 

“Whatever you like, m'lady,” said Thomas, a little thrown by the informality of their exchange. He had never had such direct dealings with Lady Rose, and his knowledge of her was mostly tied up in downstairs gossip. He'd heard that she was prone to getting herself mixed up in the modern indecencies of upper class ladies and that she seemed to have an affinity for things that were considered below her station, but Thomas wasn't fool enough to consider the notion that any of that meant there was some sort of commonality between them. Knowing his place was something Thomas had made extra efforts to keep to, especially in the wake of Jimmy's dismissal and the unbearable void that came with it. 

He followed behind her and listened to her prattle, making as many mental notes as he could, though it was difficult to keep track of every idea she voiced and then quickly replaced with another moments later. His thoughts inevitably kept wandering back to Mr. Carson, imagining that the old codger had knowingly schemed him into this position. The notion was worse still as he remembered how things like this had been much more manageable when he'd had Jimmy to gripe to. They'd deal a hand of cards late at night and have a laugh about it beneath the haze of cigarette smoke. The memory seemed to make the photograph in his pocket radiate a dangerous kind of heat beneath his jacket.

“Well, what do you think?” The repetition of the question was the only thing that managed to drag Thomas back to the present. 

“I'm sorry, m'lady?” Thomas feigned ignorance to cover up for his inattention. 

“The music. Do you think it should be a band or should we just use Matthew's old gramophone?” she said with a lack of annoyance that bothered Thomas more than the derision he had expected. He didn't like that Lady Rose seemed genuinely interested in his input; he had come to recognize that in service, the less you had to do with something, the less blame you carried when it inevitably went wrong. 

Clearing his throat, he opined as neutrally as possible, “A band might be overwhelming in a room like this, m'lady.”

Much to Thomas's chagrin, Lady Rose seemed to actually consider what he said. She crossed her arms and shifted her weight all onto one foot, clearly oblivious to the presence she was expected to carry around the staff. “You're certainly right, Barrow – oh, that just sounds so stuffy. What do they call you downstairs?” She adjusted her weight to the other foot and gave Thomas another expectant look, though it still took him a few moments to register that he was actually supposed to answer.

“Thomas! Wonderful!” Lady Rose enthused before steaming right back at the previous topic. “Of course there will have to be dancing, so you're quite right in thinking that a band would take up too much space. Oh, but how much better it is to dance to live music, wouldn't you agree?” 

Another pause and another space Thomas had to fill in, though this time he was at least able to get away with a mere nod and murmur of, “Of course, m'lady.” As the words left his lips, he mentally berated himself:  _Remember your place, Thomas. She wants to hear 'Yes, yes, yes,' not your pitiful life story._

Almost as if she knew what was in his head, Lady Rose took the notion Thomas had literally just settled upon and threw it out the window. “Do you like to dance, Thomas?”

Thomas found it was growing more difficult to keep up the role of the vacant servant. Through pursed lips, he ground out, “When it suits me, m'lady.”

Lady Rose seemed unsure of how to respond to Thomas's bluntness, but that was fine with him: these probing questions were getting a little too personal for Thomas's tastes, and he didn't trust himself to remain civil should Lady Rose accidentally stumble across a topic that was right out.

“Well, maybe there's a compromise somewhere,” she mused, spinning around with tiny steps like she wanted to break out into a foxtrot if only someone would strike up a tune. Her feet shuffled to a halt with the slap of her fist against her palm. She whirled around, her eyes shining with an idea: “Would you happen to know if some of the staff can play any instruments? There must be at least a piano player hiding down there.” 

“Jimmy's quite good.” Thomas heard the words coming out of his mouth before he realized he'd even opened it and quickly sucked down a horrified breath. _Jimmy's quite good_ , he sneered at himself, sure that the stupidity in his words was glaringly obvious to even someone like Lady Rose. Certainly she would be able to see through the fabric of his livery to that damning photograph of Jimmy, a badge for his shame. 

“Jimmy,” Lady Rose repeated, furrowing her brow as though she actually could place his name with his face. “Ah!” she brightened; “You mean James. The footman – the handsome one. He... helped me once.” For the first time, something about Lady Rose's demeanor dampened, burgeoning on melancholy as some hidden memory replayed behind her eyes. The moment was brief, though, as Lady Rose was quick to push whatever it was underneath her former exuberance in a most ladylike fashion. With only a slight crack in her voice, she asked with a smile, “Well, do you think he'd be able to offer his services?” 

Thomas felt as though he'd just rowed backwards into a storm-tossed sea without a hope or a prayer, his head swaying with memories of Jimmy bent over the piano in the servants hall, deftly hammering out jig after jig for no other purpose than to show off. His voice was steady when he answered, but his stomach still burned despite himself; “Unfortunately, that's impossible, m'lady,” he said, hating every terrible word for giving life to the despicable truth. “He's since been... dismissed.”

“Oh, so _he_ was the one who got caught with Lady Anstruther....” Lady Rose seemed to have heard the gossip, though she clearly hadn't bothered to notice which underling had gotten pushed out and replaced because of it. Thomas supposed that was to be expected for highborn ladies with more important things to worry about than the piddling comings and goings of the hired help. What he didn't expect was for her to add, “Well, that's really a shame. I do remember that he seemed happy here.” 

Thomas stiffened, barely able to grind out the words, “Yes, m'lady. I suppose he might have been.” Each passing moment was like the clash of flint and tinder, and Thomas was sure if he lingered any longer, he would burst into flames right there. “I should look in on having the gramophone moved down here,” he decided with a little bob of his head, suddenly nonplussed by the risk of offending his betters with an abrupt exit.

–

_Supposing he was happy_ , Thomas thought later that evening, hidden in the dark shadows of the yard behind the kitchen;  _Supposing he was happy around me...._

A cigarette burned between his fingers, threatening to singe the tops of his knuckles as he patted his coat down in search of the scintillating reminder of Jimmy's face he had not dared to look at since it had arrived. With the whisper of the cigarette's ember painting a ghostly yellow across the small photograph, Thomas allowed himself to indulge in agony of self-loathing, wondering if Jimmy had in fact been content at Downton, would it have really made any difference? Thinking he had anything to do with Jimmy wanting to hang around was foolish and he knew it, but he couldn't help torturing himself with the notion. They had been friends – the best friend Thomas had ever had – but surely friends wouldn't orchestrate as cold a departure as Jimmy had. Surely friends would want to at least write. Surely Thomas had thought more of their friendship than Jimmy had, hovering while he waited for Jimmy to realize how Thomas was dying a little more each day.

He frowned, hurling the finished smoke to the ground. The photograph faded into the gloaming for the length of a breath before it roared back to life with the flick of Thomas's lighter against a fresh cigarette. Jimmy's smirk glowed against the shadows, even when the illumination dwindled back to the touch of the cigarette's tip. How often Thomas had felt like that smirk was something Jimmy reserved just for him, a sort of secret they shared even amid the chaotic downstairs.

But that was his private reverie, which he had taken extra pains to divert attention from. He had crafted such a fine art out of wearing falsehoods as though they were his real nature that he sometimes felt he might be empty without them. Yet clearly the evidence of his transparency was here in his hand, and studying it further left him feeling like a shade floating just outside of himself, unsure what even constituted half a person anymore.

“Why did you have to be so far away?” Thomas asked the photograph. “Did you ever know that I was still in love with you?” Smoke clogged his throat as it constricted with a hitched breath. “Even as you went away, I was still in love with you.” 

And yet, someone knew. Someone who wasn't Jimmy knew about the precious secret he had buried deep within himself and tended to only in the safety of his loneliness. Someone sought to humiliate him or Jimmy or maybe even the pair of them, and it filled Thomas with an alleviating rage that served to burn away his shameful heartache. Anger was safer, he reminded himself, his thumb and forefinger creasing Jimmy's thigh as they pressed tightly into the photograph. Anger was like armor and a battle ax, which was surely better than standing naked and vulnerable. He snorted at the notion, thinking what a sad life story it made, and then stubbed out his cigarette before turning to head back inside.

–

 

...to be continued...!


	2. Good Morning Heartache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More unsettling mail arrives for Thomas in the post, which drives him to investigate further. Meanwhile, other people around the house start to notice that something is bothering the usually aloof Mr. Barrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Thomas Barrow, James Kent and the other characters of Downton Abbey are not my creation. I am not affiliated with the show in any way (sadly) and am just having some fun with my favorite canon-but-not-canon pair. Also, thanks to Cosmic Zombie/all-stories for giving this feeble beginning a once-over. 
> 
> Also, also, also: I KNOW some of the songs mentioned in this weren't recorded until the 30's (and some even in the 40's), and it annoys the history nerd inside me to reference them, but Thomas is like the poster child for the blues, so that's the soundtrack he gets. Maybe we can pretend it's the 30's? (Truthfully, it's more like 1927 in this....)

Thomas was glad the next day brought him the excuse of heading into town on the business of Lady Rose's birthday gala. He had slept poorly, tortured by Jimmy's face and the fear wrought by the mystery surrounding the photograph. He'd suffered through a cycle of tossing and turning in bed until his eyes slid closed out of sheer exhaustion, only to fall into a series of lucid dreams that would eventually frighten him back awake. Twice, he'd lurched upright in bed, gasping for air as he fought to distinguish the difference between wakefulness and the dreadful hallucination that he'd been dragged to prison for the crime of loving Jimmy a little too much. The plausibility of the dream was enough to make Thomas retrieve the photograph from the pocket where he'd left it and redistribute it under his pillow, where it seemed like it might be safer, but that only led to sleepless thoughts of another nature.

His main business was at the village pub, where he was to meet with a man from Ripon that peddled the newest jazz records, which Lady Rose had insisted they have for the party. However, he had lied to Mr. Carson about the time he needed to be there so that he might tend to his own affairs first. Not to mention that he needed a stiff drink if he hoped to see to his other, more sensitive errands.

Leaning against the bar, Thomas idly surveyed the other midday alcoholics while he waited for the bartender to notice him. Two bricklayers occupied a table in the back, raucously making unseemly comments about the seamstress seated a few stools away from Thomas. His eyes narrowed at the highball glass in her hand, unsure what sort of drink would be served with sugar on the rim like that. He asked the bartender about it when he came to ask what Thomas wanted.

“They call it a sidecar,” said the bartender, nodding at the woman. “One of those newfangled cocktails. It's supposed to come in one of the wide glasses that got the stem, but this ain't exactly a fancy establishment, if you catch my meaning.” 

“What's in it?” Thomas asked, remembering that Lady Rose had mentioned cocktails the day before. Something about it seemed like the sort of posh extravagance that always used to fascinate Jimmy, and Thomas automatically inquired after it out of habit. 

“Cognac and Cointreu, little bit o' lemon juice,” the bartender answered. He shrugged; “Ladies seem to like it better than drinking it straight up.”

Thomas made a face and ordered a pint instead, not at all interested in trying something that sounded so sweet, even in the name of Jimmy's good memory. Observation about women aside, Thomas was still fairly certain a sidecar was something Jimmy would down in a heartbeat.

But more importantly, he had to settle his nerves so that he might ring up the Sheffield post office. He sipped his beer, lit up a cigarette and eyed the pub's phone at the end of the bar, mentally composing what he would say. Somewhere in that morning's restless predawn, he had committed to using the modern convenience of the telephone instead of waiting on the post. Simultaneously, he had also decided he would avoid handling any of this business at Downton, where even closed doors seemed to have ears. A dark pub in the lonely hours of the afternoon seemed like the perfect time to go through with it.

It took him the rest of the beer and half of the next one he ordered to finally pick up the phone's receiver, though. He still wasn't used to the odd tone that resonated in his ear until the disembodied voice of the operator came through on the line, and it made him uncomfortable not being able to read the other person's body language while they spoke. It left him feeling cold.

Asking for one Lloyd Maxwell, the name Thomas had collected at the local post office, connected him to the branch in Sheffield. With each ring, Thomas's heart thudded heavily beneath the pocketed photograph of Jimmy, detesting the waiting. There was a small click when someone answered, and the operator came through asking after Mr. Maxwell.

“Speaking,” replied a limey voice that sounded as though it belonged to a much younger man than Thomas had expected. The operator introduced Thomas and his reason for calling, and Maxwell said, “Fine, fine, I'll take it.” The operator phased out with another tiny click that was buried beneath Maxwell's opening query: “Thanks for calling, Mr. Barrow. How might I be of service?” 

Thomas's voice was acidic, as it so often was when he wanted to intimidate other people out of getting too friendly. “I've had a letter through your branch without a return address,” he summed up. “I need to track down the sender.”

“You're going to have to give me a little more to go on,” Mr. Maxwell responded in a tone that had been sharpened by his dealings with the whole of Sheffield and the minutia of its mail. 

“I'm at Downton Abbey,” Thomas snapped. “Surely mail going to the better houses catches a bit more of your attention?” 

“Can't say it does, _sir_. Everyone's got plenty to say and as much right to say it as you in this day and age,” Maxwell defended with a tartness Thomas didn't appreciate. Despite that, apparently all it took on Thomas's part was a threat to carry the nature of their exchange to Lord Grantham for Maxwell change his tune and look into it. He smirked to himself while he waited, feeling rather self-satisfied. 

Maxwell seemed apologetic when his voice returned on the line, though it was hard to say if it was genuine or just an effort to avoid being pointed out to His Lordship. “As it turns out, I  _do_ remember this, Mr. Barrow,” Maxwell said, slightly muffled by the shuffling of papers. “Got a packet of letters dropped off and paid for all at once with the request that they be posted every other day. I still have two left.” 

“What?” Thomas's mind reeled at the notion of what those envelopes might contain and which of his enemies would enjoy watching him burn. “Well, who left them?” he demanded quietly, suddenly feeling like everyone in the pub had heard what Maxwell had just told him. Suspiciously, his eyes glared down the bar at the woman drinking the sidecar, and the bartender, who was mixing her a new one.

“Steady on,” Maxwell snorted. “It was over a week ago. He looked like he might be someone's valet, perhaps.” 

Thomas, who had just been wondering if this sort of trickery was in O'Brien's lexicon, cursed the revelation that the obvious suspect was no longer at the top of the list. “Well, what was he like, then?” Thomas demanded.

“He wasn't a local, if that's what you're asking,” Mr. Maxwell answered with a twinge of trepidation. 

Thomas couldn't believe the incompetence of other people sometimes. “Someone leaves you a pile of letters with special instructions and you can't even remember the color of his hair or whether he was short or tall?” Thomas spat incredulously.

“What sort of man do you take me for?” The line crackled with Mr. Maxwell's indignation; “Do I sound _funny_ to you?” 

After a lifetime of hearing that line flung at him in the most unceremonious of ways, Thomas expertly dodged insult, his voice perhaps only the slightest bit more haughty as he said: “See that my mail is delivered at once. All of it.” He tilted the phone's earpiece away from his temple, ready to sever the line on the at note, but then thought better of it. A final thought escaped him: “And should that...  _valet_ come back, His Lordship will be pleased to hear that you did your job in finding out  _exactly who he is_ .” Hanging up on that note was far more pleasing than it should have been. 

Thomas felt no shame in ordering a third beer while he waited for the record dealer to arrive, quite sure that he deserved it. Though he hadn't found out exactly what he wanted to know, he was at least now aware that the plot ran far deeper than he had initially anticipated. He was unsure if that knowledge necessarily made him feel more at ease, though. It was a dangerous game that he was now mired in, and what made it all the more worrisome was the absolute lack of control he had over any of it.

His only recompense was the promise of conning his next appointment out of a few records for Lady Rose. He needed the difference in the money she had allocated him to afford a new pack of cigarettes.

–

When Thomas returned to the house in the late afternoon, a parcel of new albums for Lady Rose under arm, he had barely removed his hat and scarf before Mrs. Hughes descended upon him. “You've had a letter in the afternoon post,” she said as she herded him from the door towards her private sitting room.

“And you thought to look after it for me. How quaint,” said Thomas as he stood just inside the door and watched Mrs. Hughes shuffle through a dresser drawer. 

Just as Mrs. Hughes was pulling a small envelope from the drawer, she paused halfway through the motion, faltering almost as though she had been caught off guard by the comment. “Well, Thomas, it  _is_ part of my job,” she recovered smoothly, crossing the room to deliver the envelope. 

The new arrival was similar to the one that had come the day before, though it was hard to tell if this one also contained a photograph – or something else – based solely on the cursory examination Thomas gave it. He observed the postmark was stamped two days after the envelope he had received yesterday, confirming the rate at which Mr. Maxwell had been instructed to send each one. Thomas made a mental note to look in on how quickly mail traveled from Sheffield so that he might calculate how many of these devilish things he ought to expect. He must have lingered on the envelope just a moment too long, though, because Mrs. Hughes took notice.

“Well? Are you going to stand there all day and stare at it or are you going to open it?” Mrs. Hughes asked, her skirts twisting stiffly around her waist as she turned to close the dresser drawer.

“What do you care?” Thomas returned flatly, his fingers the only traitor to his agitation as they dug into the brown paper package he still carried. “You can go to the flicks if you want entertainment, Mrs. Hughes.” 

Mrs. Hughes had a way of smiling that somehow encompassed the knowledge of her wizened years. She cast just such an expression at Thomas and shook her head. “It's alright to have a private life, you know. I won't be telling anyone if you've been hearing from... a paramour,” she said. The pause she took at the end of her sentence didn't go unnoticed by Thomas, and it darkened his attitude to wonder what she had originally intended to say.

Hastily tucking the envelope into his cigarette pocket, Thomas sneered, “No, I don't suppose you would. Wouldn't want to be attached to a nasty scandal, would we?” Sarcasm leaked into his mouth as he continued: “How did Mr. Carson put it? My  _revolting world_ , was it?” 

Mrs. Hughes let out an exasperated sigh, lightly slapping her thighs as her arms flopped against her sides. “You know I didn't mean it like that,” she insisted, though she inwardly knew it was futile to try and convince Thomas otherwise. She elected to be more direct with him, as little else ever seemed to work when he was in one of his moods. “I only meant that if Jimmy had been writing you, you needn't be so ashamed – at least not around me.”

The slammed door sent the message loud and clear that Mrs. Hughes had just broached a truly taboo subject.

–

Thomas latched the door of his room and flung the parcel of records on the bed, careless of whether they shattered against something other than the mattress. There was no denying the mystery of the mail was making him more agitated than usual, but it was maddening that the entire downstairs staff seemed to think it was their personal business to look in on what was wrong. It was worse still thinking that everyone seemed to be able to guess that Jimmy still haunted him at every turn. It ballooned his paranoia about who could be out to blackmail him with Jimmy's ghost.

With those thoughts in mind, he rooted through his pocket for both the new envelope and the photograph of Jimmy he already had. Laying the photo beside him on the bed, he tore at the envelope, desperately hoping that he would find something more telling than last time. In that respect, he was disappointed, for this envelope also contained nothing more than another, single photograph of Jimmy. This one was perhaps not as suggestive as the first, but it was no less damning, and Thomas held it with trembling hands as he took in its every cast shadow and splash of light.

In it, Jimmy lay comfortably on a bed that looked like it belonged in one of the upstairs rooms. He was more clothed in this image than the last one, but he was unkempt in a way that made him seem like he had been lounging on those coverlets for days, waiting to be tumbled into the pillows for a countless time. Jimmy's eyes engaged the camera with a bedroom look that Thomas felt like he shouldn't be permitted to see, though the observation did only to make his stomach burn with anticipation, not trepidation.

He picked up the first photograph and held it next to the new one, finding the combination of the two even more stirring. They both seem to have been taken at the same time, probably for the pleasure of someone like Lady Anstruther or any other number of well-borne ladies Jimmy might have used for his own means. He wished that discovery did anything to close in on some answers, but it didn't, as that list had to be at least as deep as the ocean, and certainly as wide. Instead, all Thomas had to show for it was an ache between his legs, which he masochistically refused to tend to, certain doing so gave his blackmailer some kind of victory over him. He flipped the photographs over and bit his lip as he attempted to regain command of his desires – a battle he was destined to lose.

It didn't take Thomas long to betray himself, collapsing against the mattress on his side. Discarding the pair of photos face down beside the pillow, he gripped the metal framework of the bed with his left hand and used the other to loosen his suspenders and negotiate the buttons of his high-draped pants. The terrain was familiar, especially since the rain had started pouring from the Jimmy-shaped hole in his heart. Thomas's fingers deftly moved against his hardness in an effort make as quick work of himself as possible, hating that he was so easily undone. But this was the closest he had come to any sort of sexual vice in recent memory, unable to find comfort in even casual encounters the way he once did. Since Jimmy had left, Thomas felt like he had lost the last boy in the world.

When he was through, all he had the energy to do was lay on his side, his soiled hand teasing the edges of the overturned photos. For the first time, he realized that the second photo also had a small annotation on its back:  _'Take my lips; I want to lose them.'_

The words sent a shiver down the length of his body, and he quickly shoved himself into an upright position. Surely these photos had been swiped from some personal collection, as Thomas was completely sure that the only reason he would be receiving such missives was so that he could be the butt of a cruel joke. His common sense shrieked warning after warning that it was a clear attempt to pull the veil off his carefully manicured facade of normalcy. The part of him that was inclined to scheming had already formulated a conceivable plot wherein he was caught red-handed with hard evidence that he had sinned against God and nature, and after bringing unspeakable shame upon Downton, he'd be doomed to rot at the bottom of a dark dungeon, alienated and alone until life gave out on him. Instinct told him to destroy the photos at once, but the suggestion was shouted at deaf ears, for Thomas couldn't bring himself to even crumple either one. Clearly the secrets he had been holding in his heart were harder to hide than he'd thought. He wondered if it was even worth it to pretend anymore.

Whoever was doing this to him knew well enough that Jimmy was the only person that could cause Thomas to throw caution to the wind, and it was distressing how resonantly he was being played – and how well he knew it, too. More painful still was the clenching of his heart and the tiny pinpricks of salt water lacing his eyelashes. He bent his head, pressing the heel of his still-soiled hand against his temple as his shoulders quaked with emotion. He was not one for crying, but the laces of his careful disguise had snapped, leaving his tears nowhere to hide. He hated being the way he was, hated that there was no way to fix himself and leave every desire he'd ever had for Jimmy rotting in the dirt. He hated that, despite everything, he still wished Jimmy was there, even if they were only ever to be friends.

But most of all, he hated that Jimmy was the only person he'd cried for more than once. And he hated that even after so much time, it was still as fresh a wound as it had been the day Jimmy had gone away.

–

Thomas wasn't sure he appreciated Lady Rose's youthful inability to go to sleep with the rest of them. Without warning, she came creeping downstairs to the servants hall after her cousins had retired for the night in search of Thomas and the records she'd sent him out for that day, inadvertently disrupting him during the one time of day when everyone else knew to give him a wide berth. Normally, he could be found chain smoking and reading the newspaper in the rocking chair by the piano, but this night left him starting dumbly at the same article for over an hour, a dwindling cigarette threatening to singe his knuckles as it burned low between his index and forefinger. It ashed unceremoniously in his lap when Lady Rose crept up beside him and nearly destroyed his shattered nerves.

“What are you reading about?” Lady Rose asked with that unsettling casualness of hers. 

“Just Germany's inability to choose effective officials,” Thomas lied as he brushed the cigarette ash off his pant leg distastefully. He hoped she wouldn't quiz him much further on the subject, since he honestly hadn't read much more than the headline announcing Paul von Hindenburg's new plans to choose a new Chancellor for the struggling German presidency. Rather, while the typeface had blurred together on the page, his head had been clogged with thoughts of Jimmy and the way his hair curled just so over his brow, the exact contour of his jawline and the angle of his nose. He constantly referred back to the pair of photographs, which had been burned into his memory after a series of stolen glances throughout the course of the day, torturing himself with illicit thoughts of what might have happened in the moments just after the camera's shutter winked. 

Lady Rose didn't seem particularly interested in the news, thankfully. “Tell me about the records,” she enthused, dancing right into her favorite topic. “Can we listen to them?”

Thomas was taken aback, unsure that he had heard correctly. “ _We_ , m'lady?” he wondered, unable to keep his brow from crinkling with uncertainty. 

Lady Rose actually reached out to grab Thomas's hand and shook it as though she meant to stir him awake. “Of course 'we',” she chided as if it were obvious. “How else are you to help me plan the dancing if you haven't heard the music as well?”

It was in that moment that Thomas realized why Lady Rose put him off so much: though perhaps somewhat vapid and silly, it was her disregard for the social staircase that reminded Thomas so terribly of Lady Sibyl, the breath almost froze in his lungs when he made the connection. Lady Sibyl had been one of the few people that actually bothered to try and see him for who he was. But, much like all the others like her, she had left him behind to muddle through on his own. A fear of losing any more kindness had grown in her place, and it was then that Thomas recognized that he was deathly afraid of loss, the one and only theme in his life. Maybe being dead wasn't such a terrible fate, come to it, and was suddenly quite jealous that Lady Sibyl was lucky enough to be.

Lady Rose had been too preoccupied with glancing around the spartan dining hall to notice Thomas's lack of response. She asked, “Is there a gramophone down here?”

“There isn't m'lady,” he answered, forcing his ennui from his countenance. He nodded at the nearby piano; “We just have this, but it doesn't get played much anymore.” Thomas privately decided he was glad for that, not sure he would have been able to bear the sound of it floating through the servants hall if it meant coming in to find someone other than Jimmy hammering at the keys.

“Well, come on then. Go fetch those records and I'll see you in the drawing room,” she said, already trotting towards the stairs. 

Thomas swallowed uncomfortably, his eyes flicking towards the nearby clock on the mantlepiece. “Now, m'lady?”

A dainty hand resting on the rail, Lady Rose turned on the bottom step and laughed. “Of  _course_ now, Thomas,” she said with a smile. “There's ever so much to do and we can't spare a single moment.” 

Thomas reserved his commentary, deciding that Lady Rose didn't need to hear his depressing opinion about how unnecessary such excessive planning for a single gathering seemed to be. He instead just muttered a quiet “Yes, m'lady,” and left to gather the records from his room, all the while trying to force himself to be more annoyed than he actually was about this unexpected task.

Lady Rose was extremely pleased by the bundle of records when he presented it to her in the drawing room. She didn't need to know that he had swindled the record dealer out of two pounds by telling him that he was spending his own money and not Lady Rose's, guilting the vendor into taking pity on him and knocking down the price of his wares. She alighted on a nearby sofa and opened the brown paper, happily flipping through the sleeves and delighting in the titles she had never seen before. Thomas couldn't help his surprise when Lady Rose jumped up with one of the vinyl discs and put it on the turntable by herself instead of asking him to do it for her, as her relations would have most certainly done. Remaining in his place by the sideboard, he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other while Lady Rose's back was turned, wishing for something more to do.

“I've heard of this singer,” she was saying as she wound up the gramophone. “She's the newest thing in America.” She dropped the needle onto the edge of the spinning vinyl and waited for the music to play with rapt fascination. 

The sound that filled the room was not what Thomas had been expecting. The snatches of music he had heard wafting from Lady Rose's quarters had always been more upbeat and lively, wonderful for dancing foolishly in circles with a drink in hand – the sort of stuff Jimmy used to take to. But this music was altogether sadder, its tempo a slow drawl on piano keys. The brass was low and melancholy, a perfect herald to the raspy voice that began to sing after the first few bars.

 

“ _Good morning, Heartache,_

_You old, gloomy sight._

_Good morning, Heartache;_

_Thought we said goodbye last night.”_

 

There was pain in the singer's voice, a palpable emotion that bled through the gramophone's horn as the song played on. Thomas felt a needling in his chest that he had never associated with music before, but it didn't feel unlike the sensation that spread through him when he thought of things Jimmy would like.

 

“ _I turned and tossed until it seemed you had gone,_

_But here you are with the dawn.”_

 

He felt as though he was being spoken to by a stranger that somehow had a glimpse of his soul. He supposed it was comforting to think that he wasn't the only person on the earth who woke up every day with the weight of existence heavy on his stomach. If this was some kind of new vogue in music, he accepted that he might actually like it, even if there was something vaguely alien about it.\

 

“ _Wish I'd forget you,_

_But you're here to stay._

_It seems I met you when my love went away.”_

 

Glancing over at Lady Rose, he found her still lingering by the gramophone. For the first time, she stood perfectly still, her feet no longer unfettered by the songs that usually sent them reeling across the floor. Her expression had taken on that same look he'd seen flit across her face when Jimmy had come up in their conversation the other day, and Thomas couldn't help but wonder what sort of memories the music was conjuring for her. He was always struck by a sense of distortion those times that members of the family ever displayed signs of being part of the human race.

 

“ _I've got those Monday blues_

_Straight through Sunday blues....”_

 

If Thomas had been more versed in American music, he might have been reveling in the cleverness of its ability to self-reference its past standards, but the subtlety was lost on him. Instead, he only heard the best articulation of his heartbreak he could hope to find. He didn't think it was possible to even describe his daily existence so well, but he was oddly comforted by the fact that what he dealt with had a name. He gave it a cursory go, rolling the color around in his head, and was dumbstruck by the realization that it was the only hue he had been able to see for years.

 

“ _Might as well get used to you_

_Hanging around._

_Good morning, Heartache:_

_Sit down.”_

 

The needle ran through the end of the song and then filled the air with a fuzzy crackle when the track was finished. Lady Rose recovered from the moody ambiance first, letting a heavy sigh escape her lips. “Well, that certainly would have them rolling in the aisles,” she announced, a poor attempt to lighten the mood. Any sense that she had been similarly affected by the song was quickly packed up and stored away. She flashed a grin at the silent underbutler, asking, “What did you think of it, Thomas?”

Thomas hesitated, unsure if he should be honest or not. As was his usual taste, he elected the route of ambiguity: “Perhaps not suited for dancing, m'lady.”

Lady Rose had since flopped back onto the sofa, halfheartedly perusing the records once more. “Most likely,” she mused as she scanned through the titles. Her eyes darted up at Thomas, who had not moved from his position beside the sideboard. She seemed to be weighing him up, which made Thomas uncomfortable because even if he stood with professional posture, he lacked his livery jacket and had loosened his tie when he'd sat down with the paper. He tried not to think about it, but it was impossible, because the photos of Jimmy were both stashed in that jacket, and it was still lying haphazardly across the rocking chair in the servants hall. He prayed desperately for an excuse to make an escape, but Lady Rose still looked like she was going to speak, and even if she was more easygoing than the rest, such flagrant impropriety would surely end in a dismissal without a reference.

When Lady Rose finally did continue her thought, it was not to ask him anything of a regular nature: “Is there something wrong?” she wanted to know, cocking her head like a schoolgirl.

Thomas flexed his fingers, but otherwise remained immobile. “No, m'lady,” he replied as blandly as possible. He offered a small explanation in hopes that it would put her off: “Just a bit tired, that's all.”

“Truly?” she wondered, concern furrowing her brow. “Because I would say you look rather sad, Mr. Barrow.” Her voice was soft, like Anna's voice when she was trying to be compassionate, and Thomas resented it. 

“It were just a song, m'lady,” he tried to sum up with as little harshness as possible. He would have been sacked ages ago if the family had ever been subject to the unfiltered opinions he had of them. As it was, he could hear a very pointed rib of sarcasm jutting out of the comment he had just made. 

One of her fingers started tracing circles on the fabric of the sofa. “I just meant that, well... you always look quite sad to me, Thomas, and I thought I'd look in on it, that's all.” She seemed genuinely concerned about Thomas's well-being, but Thomas didn't think that a respectable lady like her would really understand what crushed at Thomas's heart even if she made every effort to try. However, she was still talking beyond the point where most might have politely drawn the line, clearly unable to let it go. “So you're quite sure that I haven't completely destroyed your evening by making you listen to the saddest song in the world?” she asked, perhaps for her own peace of mind.

“Quite sure,” Thomas parroted, staring straight ahead at the mirror hanging over the mantle. The pomade in his hair was starting to lose its hold, discarding a few strands of hair over his brow. His relatively unkempt appearance made him stand out in the mirror's reflected scenery far more than he would have liked, wishing for the anonymity his full livery gave him during the day. 

But Lady Rose was still staring at him as though she knew he was lying right through his teeth. “Because even I felt a little wistful when I heard it,” she pressed, determined to get Thomas to admit that the song had meant something to him. Thomas's silence only served to encourage her onwards: “It reminded me of someone I used to love,” she included, her voice dropping back to a low whisper. Suddenly, she didn't seem to be speaking for Thomas's benefit anymore.

Thomas was completely taken aback by this rush of honesty. Sympathy drove him to confess softly, “For me as well, m'lady.”

Finally receiving a response from Thomas seemed to cheer Lady Rose out of her doldrums, though he was now suspicious that her quick changes in mood were rooted in habits that matched his own daily attempts at regularity. She was gathering the records strewn across the sofa cushions into a pile as she decided, “Well, I suppose we can revisit this musical revue at a more suitable hour.” She stood up with the vinyls in arm, pressing them to her chest like she was holding a child, passing Thomas on her way out. Thomas kept his eyes trained on the mirror ahead of him even as she stopped a few paces from the door and turned around to address the side of his face with one last remark.

“I'm very happy, you know. With Atticus, I mean,” she said. “But I think about that first romance very often. And when I think about it....” She paused as though she were unsure if she should say what was really on her mind, but Thomas's statuesque demeanor inspired the courage to finish. “And when I think about it, I always cry, because I loved him more than I've loved anyone in my whole life.” 

Though Lady Rose made a dramatic attempt to walk out of the room on that note, Thomas finally found it within himself to engage her. With a neat turn on his heel, his shoulders still straight and his chin held high, Thomas asked, “Did he love you as well, m'lady?”

If Lady Rose had been taken aback by Thomas's forwardness, she made no sign of it. Clutching the records more tightly, almost like she meant to press them into her chest, she let a nostalgic smile cross her lips. “Well, yes. I rather think he did.”

Rigid as his exterior remained, the answer felt like a torch against his paper-thin memories. But because men didn't cry, he kept his posture formal and his expression blank as he said, “Then there's no need for tears, is there.” He didn't even pose it as a question, merely stating it as an unquestionable fact.

Lady Rose stared at him, amazed. She looked like she was on the cusp of asking Thomas another question, wanting to know what kind of heartbreak he had endured to conjure such advice.

Thomas remained unmoved and still: “Goodnight, m'lady.”

–

More than ever, Thomas wished he was dead. Lying in bed on his back, surrounded by the blackness of night, it was easy to pretend that he was. He hoped that sooner rather than later, he would just simply cease to be, tired of feeling outside all the time.

In the room next door, Thomas could hear the footman that had just been transferred from London carrying on with one of the upstairs maids. Such closed-door interludes were nothing new in the servants quarters, but the relative ease with which his neighbor could enjoy his pleasures made Thomas vindictively consider reporting the affair to Mr. Carson. He would have marched right down the hall to the butler's room to do it immediately if he didn't think it was wiser in the long run to keep the newer staff in his back pocket while he still could.

His thoughts inevitably returned to Jimmy, who was still the only consolation he had in life, even if he was also the fount of his depression. He often wondered what Jimmy was doing at any given moment, daring to ask if Jimmy ever thought of him as well. Even if they were only ever destined to be friends, Thomas would have preferred that fate to the one he currently endured. And though Jimmy's good looks far outshone his capacity for sentimentality, Thomas was sure the two of them had managed to form a bond that eclipsed any other in the house. Sometimes the only thing that powered Thomas onwards was only faint glimmer of hope that their camaraderie would inspire Jimmy to reconsider his decision to never look back. He liked to imagine it had meant at least that much to the dismissed footman.

The deathly gloom that held Thomas in its thrall gave him the nerve to beg the silence for a listening ear. “If you'd really gotten to know me, would you have felt differently?” he wondered aloud. “Because I know I fumbled things between us like an amateur.” He punctuated the thought with an uncharacteristic sigh, supposing that it was pointless to think about it too deeply. Knowing everything he did at the present moment made him wish he could have informed his past self with just a little advice. And yet, there were still so many questions about Jimmy that Thomas had no hope of ever unraveling alone in his room. In particular, berating himself over the mistake he'd made regarding his overtures towards the handsome youth, still mystified that he could have read the situation so horrifically wrong.

He continued to lay there, waiting for en epiphany or even some shred of evidence that Jimmy cared about him, too. Waiting for the courage to let it all go.

Waiting to be dead.

–

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lady Rose's record is playing the song 'Good Morning Heartache', first recorded by Billie Holiday for Decca Records in the 1940's. But I'm taking liberties here so deal with it, haha.
> 
> More in the wings! Will probably post it in about a week so I can keep ahead!


	3. A Fool To Want You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much to Thomas's distaste, Lady Rose has pinpointed him as someone worth confiding in -- and someone worth helping.

Two mornings later, the post brought another piece of mail to Thomas, but this time it filled him with a sense of dread. With the two photos of Jimmy he already had burning a hole through his breast pocket and in hot pursuit of his heart, Thomas was afraid to open the new envelope, now fairly certain as to what it would contain. As soon as he'd taken it from Mrs. Hughes at breakfast, he dropped it on the table as though it were a hot coal and placed a napkin on top of it, determined to ignore it as long as possible.

“Today will prove to be a busy one,” announced Mr. Carson as though every day wasn't already a three-ring circus. “Lady Rosamund is coming up from London and will remain until Lady Rose's birthday event, so let's not embarrass ourselves, shall we?”

A murmur of agreement rose from the rest of the staff over the clatter of teacups and knives scraping butter across toast. Thomas trained his gaze on the untouched bowl of porridge in front of him, refusing to acknowledge the pointed stare he knew Mr. Carson was sending him from the head of the table at the mention of 'embarrassment'.

“Thomas,” came Mrs. Patmore's shrill voice, cutting through the breakfast chatter. He looked up to find her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a wooden spoon pressed against her hip like a sidearm. “Has Lady Rose given you a menu for the gala yet? I need to put an order in to the grocer this week if we're to have everything in on time.”

“It hasn't pleased Her Ladyship to think there will be anything other than music and dancing for the duration,” Thomas answered snidely, though his commentary was somewhat rooted in truth. He had only seen Lady Rose once since they had listened to the blues record together, but she had seemed distracted and hadn't given him much to work with. Thomas might have been more worried that Lady Rose's inability to concern herself with the details of her party might end up falling back on him in a negative way, but his own troubles kept him from focusing properly.

Mrs. Patmore had no patience for any of it, returning Thomas's fire with a jibe of her own: “Well, if you could gently  _remind_ Her Ladyship that the older people will need something to do while she's spinning around like a whirling dervish, I would be  _much_ obliged.” She turned around and marched back into the kitchen like a general returning to battle. 

It was always hard to tell if Mrs. Patmore's zinging commentary was intentional or not, but Thomas didn't appreciate being made a fool of in front of everyone else. Abruptly pushing his chair back, he rose to follow Mrs. Patmore into the kitchen with the intention of rectifying what was clearly being pointed out as a failing on his part. He didn't realize he had forgotten the envelope under his napkin until it was too late.

A giggle heralded the return of Daisy and Ivy, who had begun clearing the table. Thomas was in the middle of deciding what sort of cake Lady Rose would be enjoying for her birthday when he espied the forgotten envelope in Ivy's hand. What little color blushed his cheeks instantly drained from his face as he watched her wave it at Daisy tauntingly. “Trust me in these things, Daisy, Mr. Barrow's got himself an admirer,” she was saying to the other cook, who didn't seem to appreciate the lecture one bit.

“And what makes you such an expert?” Daisy huffed, her face a cherry red. Normally, Thomas might have intervened on Daisy's behalf, often bothered by the way she was diminished by the others, but sheer terror overrode any desire to do so as he watched the envelope flap back and forth in Ivy's hand.

“Because I know what it's like to be fancied,” Ivy lorded over Daisy, enjoying the rare opportunity to knock the senior cooking assistant down a few pegs. 

“I've been fancied! By loads and loads of blokes!” Daisy exploded, snatching at the envelope, which Ivy always seemed to have just outside her grasp.

“Yeah? Then where are they? These loads and loads of blokes?” Ivy cajoled.

Neither one of them seemed to have noticed Thomas right there with a murderous glint in his eyes. His jaw was clenched as he fought to reign in his seething annoyance. He knew most men found it cute when girls squabbled over them like that, while men like Jimmy enjoyed how such behavior fanned their own egos. Thomas, on the other hand, was only reminded why he didn't care for the affections of women at all.

“Well, at least Alfred fancied me, sort of,” Daisy muttered, breaking the tense silence. She glowered at Ivy from across the butcher's block in the middle of the kitchen.

“Alfred fancied _me_ ,” Ivy corrected with a toss of her chin. 

“You mean _Jimmy_ fancied you,” Daisy snapped.

Ivy let out a sharp laugh that was intended to stab at Daisy's self-esteem. “Yeah, Jimmy, too, come to it,” she answered with a catty smile. It wasn't a particularly flattering expression.

After being privy to countless gentlemanly conversations with Jimmy about this very subject, Thomas couldn't help but interject, deciding that the statute of limitations had long since expired on the clause of secrecy attached to them. “ _Jimmy_ found you to be an incredible bore,” he informed Ivy, his unexpected addition to the conversation shocking both girls to silence. 

Daisy recovered first, her mouth forming a perfect 'O' as she took a large step backwards and wagged a finger at Ivy. “So  _that_ were the reason you took t' fancying Alfred instead,” she realized, the smallest ebb of gloating in her tone. “You put Jimmy off!” 

In an effort to regain her footing, Ivy sniffed, “Jimmy weren't exactly a gentleman, if y'ave to know.”

“Says you, runnin' off to the pub and plays and such with anybody that'd pay for it,” Daisy retorted, practically shaking with insult at the depth of Ivy's interference in how much interest Alfred might have taken in her. She stormed around the butcher's block to where Ivy stood and snatched her by the wrist, her nostrils flaring as she raged, “Like it weren't obvious t'everybody here that Jimmy didn't give a toss about anything t' do with you!” She wrestled with Ivy's arms, trying to grab Thomas's envelope out of her hand like it was the dispute's victory trophy, all the while shouting, “Everybody knew Jimmy were just out for sport and that he thought you were vain and stupid enough to fall for it. Me, Mrs. Patmore and Mrs. Hughes – I bet even bloody _Mr. Barrow_ knew it.” She caught hold of the envelope and pulled. 

The rending of the envelope slashed through Thomas's gut worse than the bullet that had nearly taken off his hand. Fortunately Mrs. Patmore was between them faster than humanly possibly, her thick hands wrapped fiercely around the girls' two wrists. She must have been squeezing hard because the two halves of the envelope hung limply between their fingers. “What on God's green earth have I told the pair of you about fighting in my kitchen?” she disciplined with maternal expertise. Dropping their wrists, she plucked the pieces of the ripped envelope from her two assistants and then shoved them towards Thomas with the command, “Now go and apologize to your betters and hope he doesn't bring the wrath of heaven down on your stupid heads.” Thomas could have sworn he heard her mutter under her breath, “Though Lord knows you two deserve it.”

Any enjoyment Thomas might have normally gotten out of Ivy and Daisy's public humiliation was negated as the pair bowed their heads respectfully and murmured their penance. Instead, his eyes honed in on Mrs. Patmore as she stole a peek at the halved envelope. She either caught a glimpse of something meant for Thomas alone, or had quickly realized that Thomas was trying to strangle her with his glare, for she no sooner had the envelope hidden behind her back, out of sight. Thomas acted like he hadn't seen, even though both he and Mrs. Patmore were both well aware that he had. Smoothly, he dropped his gaze down his nose at Daisy and Ivy, who were still standing tensely in front of him, heads bowed like they were waiting for the gallows. He bent forward, his hands clasped at the small of his back and his voice simmering with a veiled threat: “If I catch either of you muddling through my private affairs again, you'll  _wish_ the worst of your problems were stupid boys with even stupider feelings.” 

He left them cowering where they were and strode around them, a hand held out to Mrs. Patmore expectantly. “Sorry about the trouble,” she said, lifting the destroyed envelope out to Thomas, who snatched it back without a word. He was relieved to note that whatever image was contained inside was still shrouded in paper save for a bent corner that hung out of one end. He easily recognized the swoop of Jimmy's wavy fringe in that little fragment, and the thrill of the secret brought a pleased quirk to the corner of his mouth.

“Told you someone fancies him,” Ivy hissed with just enough volume to be heard under the kitchen's hubbub. Both she and Daisy had been watching Thomas over their shoulders once they thought his back had turned on them.

“What? Cos' he smiled?” Daisy whispered back a little _too_ loudly, not about to concede that Ivy had been correct. “It don't mean nothin'. I'll have you know that I've seen Mr. Barrow smile plenty.” 

“Not that I ever saw,” Ivy defended lamely, quickly whipping her head forward again when Thomas started to make his exit. Daisy still watched him as he moved, hoping to catch proof of her claim lighting his face. She was disappointed.

“Not that you ever saw what, exactly?” Mrs. Patmore demanded to know, suddenly appearing between the two of them. She tracked Thomas as he strode out into the hall, well aware that the underbutler wouldn't easily forget this incident.

Daisy broke out of formation to spin around on Mrs. Patmore, still not worried about an outburst. “Mrs. Patmore, you've known Mr. Barrow longer than Ivy,” she said with a stomp of her foot. “Tell her I'm right and that she's being daft.”

“I'll tell you what's daft: standing around like the luncheon is going to prepare itself, _that's what_ ,” Mrs. Patmore snapped, reaching for a nearby rolling pin like she meant to take a swing at them if they dawdled any longer. As Ivy and Daisy quickly jumped into action and raced around the head cook like two bees that had just been slapped away, Mrs. Patmore added, “And if you little gossip mongers were to start having ideas about the sort of thing that makes Mr. Barrow happy, I'd start to worry you were growing up faster than I'd prefer.” 

With that, she tottered off to find Mrs. Hughes, leaving Daisy and Ivy even more mystified than they'd been when they'd started.

–

Thomas waylaid all of his immediate responsibilities to duck outside on the pretense of a cigarette break. Though he went as far to take one out and press it between his lips, he let it dangle there, forgotten, as he unsheathed the two halves of the torn photograph from the mangled envelope. The early breeze teased the edges of the picture as Thomas brought the pieces together and promptly forgot the rest of the world as the image was restored.

The rip traveled diagonally through the tightly cropped photograph of Jimmy's face, between his eyes and splitting his cherubic lips. He looked drunk on aphrodisiac, his hooded eyelids shading his irises into half moons, his fingers crumpled against his cheek such that his lips were kissing the tips of the last two. The sultry expression made Thomas feel dirty and guilty, but looking at it thrilled him all the same. A quick examination of the reverse side of the photo found the notation Thomas had come to expect, though the words were still inexplicable and troublesome. This time, it read:  _“Your goodbye left me with eyes that cry.”_

If Thomas hadn't been sure that this was the work of a blackmailer, he solidified his opinion upon seeing those words, deciding that the likelihood of Jimmy expressing such a sentiment to  _anybody_ was fairly remote. Furthermore, Thomas was left with the encroaching fear that whoever was sending him these torturous photographs was attempting to not only set Thomas up for disaster, but also trying to tear Jimmy down with him. Thomas had long ago accepted that his queer disposition was going to be his undoing, but he abhorred the very suggestion of Jimmy enduring the same fate just for the misfortune of knowing him. In Thomas's eyes, Jimmy had never done anything wrong, even when he had, and (as far as Thomas was concerned) never could. But someone knew that Thomas would roll into an early grave before he let anyone harm him. Someone  _knew_ that Jimmy made Thomas stupid. 

And yet, the longer Thomas gazed at the destroyed photo, he couldn't help the way his motored heart would fire up with just the thought of Jimmy, thrumming in his chest with electric fervor. A part of him actually enjoyed every sadistic photograph that had arrived in the mail, even if their true purpose was just to remind him of things he would never be able to have.

The bang of the back door being thrown open startled Thomas enough to make the unlit cigarette fall from his mouth with a jolt. Glaring over his shoulder at the interruption, not at all happy to see Mr. Carson looming in the doorway. “There you are, Thomas,” he sniffed, his eyes flicking disapprovingly at the cigarette rolling through the gravel at Thomas's feet. “Lady Rose is ringing for you and your  _addiction_ is keeping her waiting.” 

It took a brief moment of panic for Thomas to realize that Mr. Carson was referring to his smoking. Quickly, he stuffed the torn photograph of Jimmy into the same pocket as the other two and hurried inside, his disguise of calm and professionalism stitched back into place.

–

Thomas had forgotten to ask Mr. Carson what room Lady Rose was ringing from and was too proud to go back downstairs to do so. Instead, he walked purposefully through the house, following his ears to the drawing room, where Lady Rose was inevitably listening to more records on the gramophone. Thomas was relieved to note that the song she currently had on was much more lively than the one she'd played a few nights prior.

Thomas wasted no time in informing Lady Rose about Mrs. Patmore's concern regarding the menu and then moved to stand in his usual place, eyes riveted on the mirror ahead of him.

“How dreadfully dull,” Lady Rose frowned, lifting the needle off the record and leaving it to revolve silently on the turntable. “Can't you just tell her to make all my favorites?”

“Oh, I wouldn't credit Mrs. Patmore with being so astute,” Thomas said just to be mean-spirited. He knew perfectly well that wasn't the case, as Mrs. Patmore often surprised him with how much she picked up on, but he was still livid over that morning's incident and somehow still felt to blame the head cook for the actions of her underlings. Besides, if he could keep Lady Rose distracted from her record collection, there was less chance she would select one that might inspire more unwanted personal conversation.

“Fiddlesticks,” Lady Rose muttered, throwing herself onto the sofa with a huff. “Fetch me a pen, I suppose. And paper.”

Thomas was relieved to have a task, and smartly left the room to fulfill it. He returned soon after and presented the items to Lady Rose on a small tray so that she might be able to write easily. “Mrs. Hughes will probably also be wanting a guest list so she can begin the arranging the accommodations, come to it,” he reminded her with a cautious glance at the records strewn out across the sofa cushions.

“Well, it's good one of us is organized,” Lady Rose sighed as though Thomas's entire job didn't revolve around the notion. She was scrawling furiously on the paper as Thomas straightened and waited dutifully to be spoken to again. He couldn't help but notice that her lettering was a lot less flowery than that he'd seen of other high society women, which sharply reminded him how he still had no idea what Jimmy's handwriting had looked like. If Jimmy ever had been one to write, he certainly hadn't been privy to it; Jimmy had just liked to talk, and talk, talk, talk he did. It was almost shocking to Thomas how quickly Jimmy had fallen into the habits of a tittering schoolgirl around him once he'd been assuaged that Thomas wasn't interested in pursuing him anymore. Even though both of them had known that wasn't true. 

“You know, Thomas, I was thinking,” she suddenly piped up, capping the pen and discarding it onto the record pile with her unfinished lists. He remained still as the furniture as she stared at him expectantly. The awkward silence lingered for a few beats before Lady Rose attempted to prompt a reaction out of the underbutler. “About what we spoke about that other time. Do you remember?”

Thomas wished he could pretend like he had no idea, but he also predicted that would elicit an even more painful retelling of the incident by Lady Rose. So, with pursed lips, he let out a succinct, “Yes, m'lady.”

“Well, what you said about being sad about... about my old flame....” She was tripping over the words like she wasn't sure how they would sound coming out of her own mouth, but she seemed determined to embarrass Thomas with her personal business nevertheless. “At first I thought you were being like Mary, who didn't approve at all and went out of her way to put a stop to it. And I was upset when I went to bed that night because I remembered how furious I was with her for telling me who I should and shouldn't be in love with,” she expounded with a whirlwind of agitated hand gestures that thankfully distracted her from the darkened look that crossed Thomas's face at her word choice.

Then she paused to take a breath, flicking a cursory glance at both entrances to the room assuring her that no one was about to walk in on what she was about to admit. When she began to speak again, her voice was slower and much softer, like the memory she was recounting deserved only the most gentle of words. “But then I started thinking about him again and how happy I'd been when we were together – how he'd never have tried to hurt me should Mary not have forbidden him from seeing me again. And then I thought of what you said about being sad about it, and it became ever so clear that you were right, because I know he didn't leave because he stopped loving me or I him. Truly, I should be pleased that even if it was never meant to be, I at least was allowed to feel what it was like to know a love that wasn't bound by rank or duty. And no one can take that away from me – not even Mary.”

She was leaning on the high arm of the sofa, scrutinizing Thomas like she hoped to unearth another pearl of wisdom if she looked hard enough. She tried not to let her disappointment show when all Thomas had to say was, “Not everyone is so lucky, m'lady.”

Still, Lady Rose perked up, nodding vigorously. “But at least I understand that now, and it's all thanks to you that I ever did,” she thrilled in a way Thomas thought was a bit excessive. His comment that night had been a throwaway, rooted in self-pity and remorse and not at all intended to completely enlighten Lady Rose's worldview.

Cocking her head, Lady Rose continued to stare at Thomas thoughtfully, the gears in her head whirring loud enough to give away where her mind was going. Thomas stiffened, bracing himself for the prying question that inevitably came out of her mouth. “Were you so lucky?” she asked plainly.

Thomas opened his mouth to say something snide and then remembered his place. Sucking in one cheek and biting down on the flesh, he thought of Jimmy and how much he missed him. Instead, he offered lamely, “No, m'lady. No, I was not.”

“Oh, Thomas, how terrible for you!” No sooner had the words echoed in his ears did Thomas comprehend that Lady Rose had practically climbed over the sofa arm to clear the distance between them in a flurry of beading and rayon. Most unexpectedly, she trounced up to Thomas and flung her arms around him in the most comforting hug he'd experienced in recent memory. Thomas's arms twitched at his sides, tempted to return the gesture with at least a pat on the back, but decorum stayed his hand. Presently, Lady Rose disengaged and stepped back, allowing Thomas to exhale a breath he hadn't even realized he'd trapped inside his lungs.

“It's... not important, m'lady,” Thomas lied, all the while thinking about how it was actually the most important thing in the entire world.

“Why? Is it something you're trying to forget?” Lady Rose questioned, leaning back against the sofa's arm. Her shoes were angled inwards like a child, her hands folded behind her back and her gaze downcast.

“I would never!” Thomas answered a little too quickly, instantly hating himself for allowing those impassioned words to escape him. He lifted his chin and squared his shoulders in an effort to reset his professional demeanor and rectified his answer: “It's just not a particularly polite story, if you must know, m'lady.”

Lady Rose remained unphased, in fact laughing a bit at Thomas's attempt to avoid the subject. “Well, my story isn't  _particularly_ _polite_ either,” she said. “Why do you think Mary was so determined to ruin it?” 

“I wouldn't presume to know, m'lady,” Thomas told her, despite the fact that Lady Mary's often hypocritical judgment of others was famous even amongst the staff. He could tell Lady Rose wasn't satisfied with the answer, though, which left him floundering for an appropriate compensation. Silent lips parted like he meant to speak, it took Thomas a few cranks to fashion a genteel way to satisfy Lady Rose's curiosity. “But I would venture to say that if Lady Mary were my family, she would have found my choices quite... shocking.”

He should have known a teaser would only serve to spur Lady Rose further on. “Oh, how positively mysterious!” she enthused as though she were sharing notes on a titillating book. “Then it was some sort of secret affair?”

Thomas forgot to be cross with her, even inwardly, for asking such a question. Instead, there was just a bubbling of regret within his breast, broiling right beneath the Jimmy photographs in his inner pocket. “Not very secret, nor much of an affair, truth be told,” he confessed softly as the memory of Jimmy's mouth beneath his caressed his lips, a sweetness articulated during the four heartbeats before Alfred had barged in – four heartbeats during which Jimmy had sleepily kissed him back. He gathered himself, though his chin dipped below the line of courtesy as he examined the tops of his shoes: “I'm not a particularly likeable one, m'lady.”

“Whoever told you that is dreadfully cruel,” Lady Rose decided as she flung herself back onto the sofa, halfheartedly reaching for the paper and pen she'd left there. Thomas was glad she had returned to her attempts at party planning, not at all keen to explain to her that the culprit of such accusations was none other than himself. As she continued to etch out her lists, she voiced her thoughts in a careless fashion that reminded Thomas of his conversations with Jimmy, a parallel that left him cold.

“That's rubbish. Someone truly unlikeable wouldn't be able to be in love,” Lady Rose chattered as she spelled out a course of savory tartlets and little hor d'oeuvres on the paper. “Whoever it was that broke your heart, Thomas – I'm certain she at least knew you how much you cared for her.”

“It weren't heartbreak. Not really, m'lady,” Thomas attempted to deflect, smoothing right over her unwittingly incorrect pronoun choice. “Just a case where someone loved somebody else more than the other ever would is all.”

A scuffle arose as Lady Rose tried to forcefully recap the pen. Still fumbling with the writing tool, she shot Thomas a meaningful look from across the room, her face the very picture of indignation, “It's never wrong to love someone, Thomas. I believe that with all my heart.”

There was a certain false smile Thomas reserved for impressing the family, and he deployed it easily when he answered her with every grace and air of a proper servant: “If you'll pardon my saying so, m'lady, but I would beg to differ.” He wasn't sure what inspired him to be so candid with Lady Rose when it was clear she still carried idealistic notions about romance. Inane and unrealistic as it sounded, he supposed a small part of him was glad that she might be someone who would be empathetic to his disappointments. Even with his particular perversions kept secret, such individuals were rare and hard to come by.

Lady Rose pushed the paper and pen away yet again and readjusted her position on the couch so that she might address Thomas directly, even though no one would have ever expected her to bother when speaking to a butler. “Who was she, Thomas?” she asked flatly, unable to keep herself focused on something she found far less important than the feelings of another. “You shouldn't feel like it's unsuitable discussion it because of who I am.”

“S'not suitable discussion for _anyone_ , m'lady,” Thomas said, tightening his jaw with a swallow. He couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes, instead drifting his gaze towards the mirror, where there was a safety in the backwards universe behind the glass. He caught sight of himself in the reflection, a hollow man with a dry voice and a head stuffed with straw – a poem he had read once. A poem that ended with a whimper. 

“Then we _absolutely_ must discuss it,” Lady Rose decided, straightening her back in an attempt to look more commanding than Thomas could ever recall. The effect actually forced Thomas to double-check his posture and the straightness of his tie. “If not right here, then soon – perhaps somewhere less... formal,” she continued, oddly sounding like her station ought to for once despite her choice in subject matter. It faded from her as she returned to her usual sentimentality, adding in a low murmur, “Because I know very well that those kinds of feelings don't fold up and tuck away easily like a pocket square or a kerchief.” 

Thomas was at a loss for words, which was rare for his usually quick wit. He desperately wanted to protest the inappropriateness of him escorting Lady Rose  _anywhere_ , much less somewhere he would feel safe talking about Jimmy. And yet there was a certain truth to her words that had been offered to him so rarely that he knew he would be foolish to ignore the opportunity. He decided to water down the gravity of Lady Rose's request by pushing out a very bland, “Yes, m'lady.” 

“Marvelous!” exclaimed Lady Rose, slumping back into the sofa's depths with her usual lack of ladylike grace. She re-assumed the business of finalizing the guest list and the menu with new vigor. After about fifteen minutes of blessed regularity, during which Thomas was calmed by focusing on his job and not Jimmy, she gestured blindly towards the record pile and bade Thomas towards it. “This silence is dreadful,” she lamented, though she was still dutifully writing as she spoke. “Choose something to put on, Thomas, and do keep it going as best you can.”

Thomas worked to remind himself that any and all requests from his employer were in his job description, whether it was winding a gramophone or sneaking rich women out of their comfort zones in the dead of night. Framing the whole scenario in that context helped him manage better as he strode behind the couch and rounded it on the far side so that he might look through the records without interfering with Lady Rose. Bending to gather up a few of the small discs, he flipped through and scanned the titles, finding most of them to be in the unfamiliar realm of American jazz.  _Jazz and blues_ , he thought, remembering the color of the sad song he'd heard with Lady Rose before. Perhaps he could find another one like it. After the direction Lady Rose had driven their discourse, he felt like he needed to hear something maudlin the same way he was craving a cigarette.

He chose one based on its title, hoping the music would match the name. Setting the others back down, he carried it to the gramophone and slipped it out of its sleeve, dropping the vinyl disc onto the turntable. He cranked the music machine and watched it begin to spin, the center label becoming an indistinguishable swirl of lettering and color. Gently, he lifted the needle and reset it at the record's edge. A crackle of sound flooded the gramophone's horn, and then the dirge of a snare.

 

“ _I'm a fool to want you._

_I'm a fool to want you._

_To want a love that can't be true,_

_A love that's there for others, too.”_

 

The words were perfect, bringing a hint of smile to Thomas's face. The gravelly voice sounded the same as the one on the other song Lady Rose had played with him, so he looked down at the paper record sleeve he still held for a reminder of what her name was – a Ms. Billie Holiday, he noted for future reference.

 

“ _I'm a fool to hold you._

_Such a fool to hold you._

_To seek a kiss not mine alone;_

_To share a kiss the devil has known.”_

 

Lady Rose looked up questioningly, her pen poised to write, its nib still against the paper. “Why this one, Thomas?” she asked curiously, unsure why he would have selected something that was so reminiscent of the song that had opened the heart he seemed so desperate to protect.

“You wanted to hear about what it were like for me to be in love, m'lady,” Thomas answered. A soft trumpet wept beneath his words, which came much more easily now than when Lady Rose had been pressuring him to speak frankly about Jimmy before. It was as though the music was doing the most difficult part of holding the discussion for him, saying all the things he was usually too cowardly to admit with his own voice. He nodded at the gramophone: “Well, there it is.”

 

“ _Pity me; I need you._

_I know it's wrong._

_It must be wrong._

_But right or wrong,_

_I can't get along_

_Without you.”_

 

The music faded as the needle reached the end of the record, but Lady Rose's determination to help Thomas find the peace he had inadvertently directed her towards had only blossomed. “It'll be alright, you'll see,” she assured him. “You'll escort me out dancing or something and you'll tell me why it still hurts you so much.”

“As you say, m'lady,” Thomas gave in hopelessly, though he didn't expect much to come of it. He felt deflated, like the battle had come to an end. Lady Rose would unearth the disgusting truth and there was little avoiding it. He glanced over at the familiar mirror, his anchor whenever he was chained to waiting on the family in this room, but found he couldn't catch a glimpse of its reflection from his new position next to the gramophone. So instead, he wished again for a cigarette, wished life wasn't so very long – wished for Jimmy's smile.

So the poem about the hollow men went: this was the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

–

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Billie Holiday song Thomas chose was also not recorded until the 1950's and was included on the last compilation she made before she died. It was written by Frank Sinatra. It's also a bit more Decca than her early jazz stuff (which would actually be period appropriate), but the power of this one is perfect to ignore for the purposes of this fanfic :D 
> 
> Also, the poem Thomas is thinking about is 'The Hollow Men' by TS Eliot, the best poet there is <3
> 
> Also, super thanks to CosmicZombie/all-stories for keeping me on task and for looking through this crazy thing! I hope she's not just fanning my ego and that you guys like it as well, herpaderpderp. More in the wings, as always :)


	4. Ain't Misbehavin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thomas escorts Lady Rose out dancing and secrets are found out.

The late hour found Thomas hunched in the chair in front of the piano, the three photographs of Jimmy spread out across the keyboard as a fog of cigarette smoke drifted around his head. He had long since given up on pretending like the newspaper held any interest for him and had relocated from his usual perch in the rocking chair once he'd conceded that defeat. His left foot idly depressed one of the piano's pedals off and on, not daring to attract any attention by nostalgically sounding any of the ivories. Thomas had always valued silence, but in that moment, it was more deafening than the lilt of Jimmy's piano playing, which was reverberating through his skull with faithful devotion. When Jimmy would play, Thomas wouldn't dare speak.

Staring at the three images had reignited the drive within Thomas to get to the bottom of the mystery as soon as possible, even if just for the sake of preserving Jimmy's reputation. Thomas still hadn't heard anything from Mr. Maxwell at the Sheffield post office in regards to the unknown valet that had dropped the envelopes off in the first place, and he was beginning to think that it was a dead end. With some luck, hopefully Mr. Maxwell had at least obeyed his request that the remainder of the envelopes be posted immediately. If Thomas's calculations on the delivery time were correct, he should be receiving them within the next day or so. He just wished he had a clue as to what he was going to do once that happened, since there was no guarantee that the answer would be found once he had all the pieces of the puzzle.

“I won't pretend to know what this is about,” said Anna as she walked into the servants hall, startling Thomas with her unexpected entrance. He quickly scooped the photographs up in a deft motion that dragged his knuckles across the keyboard, heralding his frantic nerves with a graceless roll through the A minor scale. Anna's mouth was slightly agape as she took stock of Thomas, who had popped to his feet and was anxiously stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray sitting on top of the piano, not at all sure what to make of his demeanor when it was anything less than elegant. She flapped her jaw wordlessly for a moment before a thought finally managed to take form: “But I certainly didn't expect your escort to be Mr. Barrow, that's for certain.” She eyed him worriedly. 

Behind her, Lady Rose had appeared, somehow still looking the part of a high-class lady despite the hat and frock that had clearly come right out of Anna's wardrobe. She rubbed her hands together, unconcerned about Anna's trepidation and waved it off: “Thomas has been incredibly kind to me through all this party planning business and I thought we deserved a bit of fun,” she said with a careless flap of her hand.

Anna's expression towards Thomas morphed, becoming something more sympathetic. He remembered Jimmy telling him once that he and Anna had been caught by circumstance with Lady Rose at a dance hall and supposed she was recalling the incident. According to Jimmy, who had always seemed to thrill at the prospect of a row, the night had transformed into what he'd referred to as 'a right fecking barney'. Thomas sincerely hoped that this excursion wouldn't turn into a repeat performance.

“No tricks, now, Mr. Barrow,” Anna warned sternly as she helped Lady Rose slip into a tweed overcoat that matched the rest of her ensemble. 

Thomas ignored her as he shrugged on his own jacket and reached for his bowler, which had also been sitting on top of the piano. “I don't know what you're so concerned for, Anna,” he said distastefully, momentarily wondering if she – or her blasted husband – had something to do with the blackmail. The suspicion reminded him to quickly shuffle the photographs he still held into his overcoat, and then pretended to be more preoccupied with fastening its buttons as he added, “I'm always a perfect angel.”

Anna shot Thomas a significant look that Lady Rose didn't notice and Thomas couldn't be bothered to figure out the meaning of. He had more important things to concern himself with, specifically what he was supposed to do with a nosy socialite that perhaps meant well, but came from a background that didn't need to be warped by the nuances that pervaded his. A younger version of himself might have been more keen to use a chance like this to advance his career, but at present, all he could do was wish he had found a graceful way to sidestep Lady Rose's urging that he alleviate the burn of his memories with a night out. For what seemed like the hundredth time that day, he reminded himself that it was all a part of the job. Then he took a deep breath and then followed Lady Rose out into the brisk night air.

No stranger to sneaking off in the dead of night, Lady Rose was comfortable leading the way towards the village, where they would catch a late night bus to Ripon. Of course, Lady Rose had selected that they go to the dance hall, absolutely in love with the recklessness the less formal jigs possessed over the high society ones she was used to. Thomas wasn't completely opposed to dancing, but it was difficult to be as enthused about it when he'd never been able to partner with the ones he would have preferred. Especially when those ones were happily off twirling girls around the floor.

“You know, your friend, James, got me out of quite the scrape the last time I went out like this,” Lady Rose announced in an effort to break the silence between them. 

Thomas was in the middle of lighting himself a cigarette, indulging in a drag before he puffed out, “He told me about that.”

“Did he? What did he say?” Lady Rose bubbled, apparently pleased that she had something to talk about with Thomas so quickly. The fight at the dance hall had unwittingly been the beginning of Lady Rose's edgy soiree in jazz and liquor, and she hoped that bringing it up would help Thomas be more comfortable in sharing his own tribulations. Perhaps it was something ingrained in Lady Rose's nature, but she found it nearly impossible to ignore another person's distress, station, creed or class be damned. 

Thomas snorted beneath the curl of his fingers, which poised his cigarette over his mouth. Lady Rose was staring at him, determined to know what he found so funny, but the exact recollection of Jimmy's summary of that particular incident was not meant for proper ears. So he took a long drag on his cigarette and forced the smoke out through his nose, telling her, “S'not so polite, m'lady.”

Leaving the house seemed to have unbridled Lady Rose's sense of decorum. “Oh, faff on your politeness, Thomas. None of your stories are apparently very polite,” she retorted, throwing her hands forward like she was shoving something invisible away. She frowned into the darkness and then added, “And you'll have to call me just Rose while we're there. And give me one of those.” She glared at the cigarette ashing in Thomas's bandaged hand.

Impressed by her gumption, Thomas reached into his pocket to retrieve one for her, passing it to her with his lighter as he recalled, “Jimmy came back complaining about 'the bleeders who nearly got the stones kicked off 'em for throwing a fecking mardy before the first drink was down'.” He cleared his throat, adding, “His words.” Inwardly, he amended it to:  _His horrible, perfect words._

Lady Rose coughed a little as she lit the cigarette, barely able to say, “It was completely my fault his night out got spoiled. I was the one who got carried away with it, but he was the one who was brave enough to come to the rescue.”

“I wouldn't think on it too much. He probably had more fun in the scrum than on the dance floor, truthfully.” Thomas mused, all the while pluming smoke. He tilted his chin upwards, peering at the spread of stars through the tobacco-laced haze. He marveled at the sheer scope of the winking canopy, wide enough to blanket the entire earth, yet still able to sit in the aperture of his eye. Jimmy had been like that: too much for him to hold, but all he could ever see. 

“Did he... tell you anything else about that night?” Lady Rose inquired, her eyes shining in the starlight as she returned Thomas's lighter. The embers of her cigarette traced a nostalgic shape on her face. 

Thomas brooded over the question, unsure exactly what she was hinting at, and then subsequently became morose at the prospect that Jimmy had kept anything from him. The very idea of it depressed him.

Thomas's silence affected Lady Rose just as poignantly as it did him. Taking a pull on her cigarette, she remembered hurrying out into a night much like this one in a maid's frock and bonnet, remembered the thrill of being just Rose, who was free to kiss someone just to try it. Rolling the cigarette between her fingers, she focused on its glowing tip as she recounted it to her companion. “And James – or Jimmy, is it? – was out in the yard and saw the whole thing, but he was a good sport about it,” she concluded, finally taking another drag. “I told him he'd have a friend for life if he'd just keep the whole thing a secret, and good job that he did.”

“There's a lot of careless talk downstairs,” Thomas mused aloud, already reaching for a fresh cigarette despite the fact he still had a few drags left on the one hanging from his mouth; “But Jimmy were always surprisingly good at keeping secrets. For someone with a mouth like his, he weren't much for idle chat.” Thomas puffed quickly at the end his cigarette and then curled his lip to let the butt drop to the ground, replacing it immediately with another as he thought about the contour of Jimmy's Botticelli smile and what it had been like to kiss it even just once.

“It sounds like he had plenty to say to you,” Lady Rose observed, completely oblivious to the way it affected Thomas's blood pressure. She paused to smoke a little bit before continuing: “And you're sure he never told you about that night?” 

“Not a word,” Thomas assented, sensing the importance of this particular topic to Lady Rose. Comfort replaced his earlier distress as he recognized it as a shred of honesty in Jimmy's often misleading behavior. More importantly, though, it assuaged him that Jimmy had never bled the secrets Thomas had imparted to him whenever they had been together, and that fact was worth celebrating. 

They strolled in silence for a bit more, each lost in thought, when something occurred to Thomas. “The bloke in the yard – the one that Jimmy saw you with – were it him? This first love you keep mentioning?” Thomas asked, actually somewhat curious as to the answer.

Lady Rose laughed a little around her cigarette. “No, not him. Just a boy I kissed,” she smiled to herself. “You don't have to love the first person you kiss, do you?”

“No, I s'pose not,” Thomas said, privately remembering his first kiss, which he had shared with a freckle-faced Irish girl in the schoolyard at the tender age of eleven. Both of them had fumbled with the mechanics of it, and Thomas had walked away thoroughly unimpressed with the entire experience, though he had been much too young to fully comprehend why. 

“So are you going to tell me about her yet?” Lady Rose prodded, reminding Thomas that he wasn't going to be able to slide out of her grip until she felt satisfied she'd helped him somehow. 

“Not until you tell me about yours first,” Thomas rebutted smoothly. The nicotine had calmed Thomas to a point where he felt inconsequential about turning the other cheek when speaking to Lady Rose, somehow quite sure that they were speaking off the record. 

They were nearly to the village and almost late for the bus. Thomas jogged ahead to make sure it didn't leave without them while Lady Rose daintily trotted after him. They found an empty bench towards the back of the trolley once they were aboard, which they collapsed upon with ragged breath that soon transformed into laughter.

“Now that's more like it, Thomas!” Lady Rose exclaimed, needling him with her elbow. “Smiling now and again never hurt a soul.” 

If Thomas had ever thought that he would find himself being chummy in the back of the late night Ripon bus with Lady Rose, he would have immediately taken himself for a lark. But as he was living through it, he knew that stranger things had happened. As it was, just the likelihood of ever hearing from Jimmy seemed like far more rare an event than this one. Leaning back, Thomas fought to keep his mouth split wide with mirth, but it proved difficult once his mind regained its usual focus. His laughter soon gave way to a series of moody grimaces, but instead of resigning himself to self-flagellant thinking, he voiced the heaviness in his heart, amazed at the relief he felt when he did so.

“It were someone who used to work downstairs, if you have to know,” he admitted, his eyes focused on the back of young man a few rows ahead of them: the woolen newsboy cap he wore reminded Thomas of the one Jimmy used to have. “I've been in service almost all my life, so I s'pose it was bound to happen sooner or later but... I never expected the way of it. Never expected I'd get it so turned round the wrong way.” 

Lady Rose was enraptured by his story, vague as it was. She piped up: “You mean you thought she loved you back?”

For all the courage Thomas had been inflated with after the walk and the cigarettes, he was still afraid to give himself away by correcting Lady Rose's misused pronoun. He took care to avoid doing the same, hoping Lady Rose would be satisfied hearing the general plot minus the insidious details. “I'm usually so careful when it comes to these things – never been wrong before – and I was just... so sure,” Thomas began slowly, privately thinking on how he'd successfully maneuvered far more precarious encounters than the one he'd flubbed with Jimmy. “Maybe I had the wrong words in me ear, but every time I'd look – any time we got to being alone – I was just... so absolutely sure....” He tapered off, unsure how to continue without getting too specific or without the sting that was starting to develop in the corners of his eyes.

“Maybe you weren't wrong,” Lady Rose suggested as though it were an obvious fact. 

“Oh, believe me, I was,” Thomas said with a drawn out sigh. “That much were abundantly clear.” 

Lady Rose didn't seem to have anything to say to that, so she sunk back into her seat to look out the window as the bus rolled through the starlit countryside. Since she'd been married, she hadn't taken on any daring adventures like this one, and she had to admit she sort of missed that part of herself. Especially after hearing Thomas's allusions to his fizzled romance, it made her long for the happiness found in her old dancing days and jazz-filled nights. It made her long for Jack Ross.

–

The Ripon dance hall was in full swing by the time Thomas and Lady Rose got there, and they were only just able to find a small table near the wall to settle down at. Thomas had not been out dancing like this since he'd been a footman, but even he had to admit there was a certain pleasure in melding into a crowd that wouldn't know him on a Tuesday. As expected for the changing times, the usual jigs and reels had been replaced with attempts to emulate the American jazz scene. Despite his limited knowledge on the subject, Thomas had to admit they weren't half bad.

Lady Rose had barely flung off her coat and hat before she was urging Thomas to get out on the floor with her before the song she loved was over – certainly to be the first of many songs that were each her absolute favorite.

“I'll need a drink first,” he assured her, glancing around for someone to take his order. Neatly, he shed his overcoat and folded it over the back of one of the chairs before sitting down and removing his bowler, subconsciously running a hand through his hair to assure that it remained slicked in place. 

“Oh, fine,” Lady Rose lamented, plunking down onto the other chair with the airs of a petulant child. 

Thomas resisted the urge to roll his eyes and just chewed the inside of his cheek until a server found their table. Presently, a young man in an apron came by to check in on them. “I'll take a pint – whatever you've got,” Thomas said before glancing at Lady Rose. He thought back to his last trip to the pub earlier that week, adding, “And the lady will have a sidecar.”

Lady Rose perked up at the suggestion of a cocktail, grinning as she slapped the edge of the table. “I didn't know you were so fashionable, Thomas!”

“I make it my business to hear about these things,” Thomas said, his eyes busy scanning the crowd out of habit. “How else am I to help you host a gala worthy of Downton?” 

“Oh, whatever would the house do without you?” Lady Rose smiled, reaching over to pat the top of Thomas's hand. “You really are invaluable – and I don't just mean to me.” 

“No need to make a fuss,” Thomas groused as he yanked his hand back, though the words didn't come out nearly as sharp as he'd intended. 

“You don't think so?” Lady Rose wondered, cocking her head. 

“Not unless you're talking about cricket,” Thomas muttered under his breath, unsure if his athletic abilities were something he should have been thankful for. Though his batting skills were basically the only reason Lord Grantham had turned a blind eye to the entire 'unfortunate incident', it still made him feel like he was a tool without any sentiments. 

Lady Rose puffed one cheek out and crinkled one eyebrow into an arch, and was making that same ridiculous face just as the server returned with their beverages. “Why are you so determined that you're so horrid?” she wanted to know as she picked up her cocktail, continuing to examine him with that same incredulous look.

“It's my part to play. Someone has to; might as well be me,” Thomas said coolly. He reached for the frothy stout that had just hit the tabletop and eagerly imbibed. 

Lady Rose set her drink down with a clink that seemed to resonate louder than even the band and the rowdiness pooling around it. “Thomas Barrow, if this has to do with the way that awful girl treated you, then as your employer, I will have to insist you stop immediately,” she said in a rather commanding tone.

“It weren't for that. Always been this way; probably always will be,” Thomas replied before diving right back into his pint so that he wouldn't have to explain exactly what he meant by the comment. Noticing he was already halfway through the beer, he set the glass back on the table and started fishing through his pockets for his cigarettes, somehow unsure of where he'd left them. 

“Well, it doesn't make you unlovable, you know,” Lady Rose pointed out, as she sipped her cocktail, unconvinced that Thomas's attitude was as unrelated as he insisted. “And it doesn't mean you won't find love again.” 

For the first time, Thomas implored her with wounded eyes to stop, his voice just above a ragged whisper as he said, “Not like that. I don't think I'll ever be in love quite like that again.” Then, hiding his words behind the rim of his pint glass, he murmured, “Nor do I think I'd want to be, neither.”

Lady Rose set her glass down with an icy rattle and slouched: “Well, I can't say I don't understand how  _that_ feels,” she commented in an equally morose way, her gaze unable to keep from the band at the top of the room. She glanced back at Thomas, who, when left to his own devices for even a minute, had resorted to sparking a cigarette. “We're quite the pair, aren't we?” she sighed, shaking her head. She had only spent the better part of a week with Thomas, but she felt like she could already find amusement in his perpetual habit. It inspired her to include a hopeful thought: “Almost friends, maybe?” 

Thomas didn't think he could bring himself to acknowledge the suggestion without making himself feel worse than he already did. “I wouldn't wish that curse on me worst enemy,” Thomas dodged through a void of tobacco smoke. He shuddered inwardly, hearing the unkindness in his voice and sought to amend it. “But I would give dancing a go,” he then offered, reaching to stub the cigarette out into the ashtray he'd pulled towards his side of the table.

Lady Rose dropped her maudlin air at the very mention of dancing, on her feet and pulling Thomas towards the dance floor with a strength he didn't expect her to have. The band had struck up a popular standard that was suitable for a foxtrot, though Lady Rose couldn't help but note the substandard voice of the band leader when compared to her Jack Ross. She tried not to think about it even as the song's words floated around her head.

 

“ _I know for certain the one I love._

_I'm through with flirtin';_

_It's just you I'm thinking of._

_Ain't misbehavin';_

_Savin' my love for you.”_

 

Thomas, for his part, was somewhat relieved to have the distraction of leading Lady Rose across the dance floor, trying hard to focus more on keeping tempo than the lyrics, which were attempting to prolong the conversation he thought he'd left smoldering in the ashtray on the table. He hoped his dancing skills were keen enough to keep Lady Rose from commenting on it.

Just when Thomas thought that he was finding his stride, expertly maneuvering Lady Rose in rings around the wholly amateurish dancers that surrounded them, he hit a snag and stumbled over his feet in a most uncharacteristic fashion. Narrowly avoiding an uncomfortable display of falling onto Lady Rose's bosom, Thomas glared over his shoulder to see what had interrupted his step and found a small gaggle of men sniggering to themselves. One of them was casually retracting the foot he had clearly stuck out to deliberately trip Thomas.

Moments like these, Thomas wished Jimmy was at hand. Whereas Thomas preferred to take harassment on the chin, Jimmy would have jumped at it head-on with at least a few well-placed cuss words. In truth, Jimmy was the only reason Thomas had ever willingly involved himself in any kind of physical altercation, and though Jimmy had actually called him brave for it, Thomas knew in his heart that he'd only done it for the same hopeless reasons he'd ever done anything for Jimmy. Any time  _anyone_ had ever called him brave, it was always something to do with Jimmy, though it was plain that Jimmy would never have any idea what he sparked within Thomas. The best he could think to do right then was to replace his hand on Lady Rose's waist and continue to push her around the floor. 

 

“ _I don't stay up late,_

_Don't care to go._

_I'm home about eight,_

_Just me and my radio._

_Ain't misbehavin';_

_Savin' my love for you.”_

 

When Thomas and Lady Rose came around the room again, Thomas's feet got caught up once more, this time sending him careening so dangerously close to Lady Rose that he had to avert his face to avoid planting his lips on hers. Lady Rose seemed confused as to what had just happened and could only stand flabbergasted as Thomas righted himself and whipped around to find the ruffians who were still taking pleasure in his embarrassment. He was disgruntled to find that the lot of them had gotten up to try and engage him in the middle of the dance floor.

One of them strode right up to Thomas and got in his face with a sneer: “Told ye that 'ee was a bit lavender, boyos,” he said to his friends, who had also conglomerated around Thomas and Lady Rose. “We give 'im two easy passes and the lassie and 'ee skirts 'em both.” The rest took the cue to laugh maliciously.

Ridicule like this was nothing new for Thomas, but he didn't appreciate the way Lady Rose was being dragged into it. Not to mention that the taunting was hanging dangerously close to revealing the one thing he'd been laboring all night to keep her from discovering.

The chap standing nearest to Lady Rose leaned in with a drunken swagger and warbled, “Why's a pretty gel like yerself wastin' time on a funny one like 'im?” He grinned, revealing an uneven row of teeth and propositioned Lady Rose most rudely: “How 'bout you take a spin wif a  _real_ man?” 

Lady Rose opened her mouth to retort, but Thomas cut her off before she had the chance. In the same tone he reserved for maids and hallboys, he ordered her plainly: “Rose, go get the coats. Now.” She hesitated until Thomas repeated with even more edge to his tone: “ _Now_ .” 

The leader of the group let her go, far more interested in provoking Thomas. Daring to give Thomas a rather hearty shove, he taunted, “Wot's a pouf like ye doin' keepin' the pretty gels on arm? Methinks it's akin to stealin', wot-say-ye, lads?” The group murmured in agreement.

Acknowledging anything they were spewing at Thomas was just as good as admitting murder, so he kept quiet and just looked for Lady Rose from the corner of his eye. She was near their table, gathering their abandoned coats and hats and chewing her lip, nervous that the situation she had just extracted herself from was going to come to blows. She seemed torn between running to the safety of the street outside and figuring out a way to come to Thomas's aid, though she wasn't exactly sure what she could do.

“Aye, your betters are speakin', faerie,” one of the superfluous men said from somewhere behind Thomas, dragging his attention from Lady Rose's whereabouts. Before he had a moment to react, a pair of meaty hands was pushing against his back, lurching him forward into a shove that sent him stumbling backwards again. 

Overcome with dizziness, Thomas felt as though he were made of doll parts, his porcelain limbs twisting as though he were being pulled apart by quarreling children. It shamed him that even if he had achieved the rank of the underbutler at one of the greatest houses in Yorkshire, he was still treated like he was less than human by common laborers.

 

“ _Eating in the corner._

_Don't go nowhere: what do I care?_

_Your kisses are worth waiting for,_

_Believe me.”_

 

No one else in the dance hall stopped to even notice what was going on, and the band continued to play on with disregard to the prejudice that was unfolding on the floor. The shoving was growing more and more fierce, but Thomas didn't care to be brave – didn't much care about anything anymore – and was barely even concerned about whether Lady Rose had managed to sneak away with their overcoats. For as pristine as the facade he wore at Downton was, the years had seasoned him into accepting that such treatment was exactly what he deserved when no one was looking.

“Maybe 'ee'd like to take a go at one of us, eh?” one of them guffawed to the group. “Ain't we a handsome lot? Or d'ya prefer blonds?” 

 

“ _I don't stay up late;_

_Don't care to go._

_I'm home about eight,_

_Just me and my radio....”_

 

Despite Thomas's acquiescence to his fate, the ruffian had unwittingly toed over a line. Something stirred within Thomas at the suggestion, a dogged reminder of the exact shape his preferences took, and it inspired him to violently wrench himself free of the spinning circle around him. Unlike any time before, he dug his heels into the ground beneath him, deciding then and there that he wouldn't allow his natural misgivings to be an excuse for ridicule or shame any longer. His athleticism shone as one of the bullies tried to give him another push, but he held his ground, driving a powerful shoulder into the assailant with enough gusto to send him sprawling onto the floor. Another tried to pull a punch at Thomas, but he caught it expertly, driving a fist of his own into the stomach of his attacker – a rather masculine feat which seemed to catch the ruffians off guard.

Thomas caught his breath, staring down those in the gang who still remained sure-footed. Ready to retaliate should any make a false move, he cracked his knuckles and pushed a stray forelock off his damp brow. The leader of the group refused to back down, taking a formidable step towards Thomas for fear of being seen as weak should he fall at the fists of someone he'd taken for a dandy. “I'll make ye sweat,” he sneered as he lunged at Thomas with a right hook that landed squarely on Thomas's jaw.

Knocked for a loop, Thomas stumbled backwards holding his head. His attention popped up just in time to dodge another punch from the gang leader, neatly appearing behind the ruffian to lock his arms in a savage vice around his neck. “Not bloody likely,” Thomas ground out as he squeezed tight enough to make his attacker's eyes bulge. Only when the bully's skin started to pale, a small gurgling sound emanating from his throat, did Thomas release his hold, dropping the gasping man into a crumpled heap at his feet. His eyes shaded with contempt, he looked around at the few that were left, silently daring them to try something else, and then curtly turned on his heel to leave when the lot of them remained frozen in place, too petrified to move.

 

“ _Ain't misbehavin';_

_Savin' my love_

_For_

_You.”_

 

A few plunks from the piano wafted after Thomas as he burst through the front door. The air outside the dance hall was frigid, but its briskness felt good against the sheen of sweat glazing his skin. He found Lady Rose standing in a cone of street light beneath the lamp post on the corner and walked over to meet her. She looked ragged but she smiled when she saw Thomas approach, holding out his coat and bowler if to she apologize for causing yet another disturbance. “It seems I can't be taken anywhere,” she said with a feeble chuckle.

“It weren't your fault, m'lady. The dispute was mine,” said Thomas, shaking his hand in refusal of the proffered coat, too keyed up and overheated from the fight to think of putting it on. Tiredly, he rubbed the corner of one drooping eye, ready to find the bus stop and head back to Downton, which Lady Rose was thankfully happy to agree with. 

As they walked through the haunting quiet of nightfall, their forms fading in and out of the gas light that illuminated the cobblestones, Thomas broke their silence with the unsurprising request for a cigarette. “The packet's in there somewhere,” he directed Lady Rose, who was still carrying his hat and coat. He was far too exhausted to attempt decorum, addressing her as he might have spoken to Baxter or even Mrs. Patmore. “Take one for yourself if you'd like it.”

It wasn't until he saw Lady Rose begin to rummage through the pockets of his overcoat that he realized what a foolish mistake he'd made, but by then it was too late. Her hand was exploring the inside breast pocket where he'd last stashed the photos of Jimmy he couldn't go anywhere without, and all Thomas could do was watch with horrified eyes as Lady Rose pulled them out. It took her a moment to realize she hadn't come across Thomas's pack of cigarettes, but as the click of her heels slowed beneath another street lamp, it became clear what she had found instead. Ashamed, Thomas lingered in the safety outside the gaslight, knowing that the dirt on his heart would at least be harder to see if he remained hidden there.

A slight breeze rustled through the halo of garments in Lady Rose's arms as she carefully studied the torn photo of Jimmy, which she had pieced together atop the other two. Her quietness was more unnerving to Thomas than even the rudeness he'd endured at the dance hall, and he couldn't help but lament the impression that she was horribly disappointed in him – especially after she had just been considering their companionship friendly. Softly, she thumbed a worn corner of the fragmented photo, a wistful turn on her lips as she murmured softly, “So it was Jimmy after all.” She lifted her chin, peering into the gloom at Thomas's shadow with empathetic eyes: “You were in love with  _Jimmy_ .”

Thomas honestly had no idea what to do, so he simply hang his head in silent shame. Lady Rose didn't  _sound_ particularly disgusted, but he knew better than to assume that the English upper class ever matched the same sentiments they  _sounded_ like. 

“Well, I must say I wondered – you'd always say his name so sweetly,” Lady Rose said, soft kindness still pillowing her voice. She chewed her lips for a moment, apparently embarrassed that she hadn't made the connection fully on her own. “Except that, well... no one ever told me a man could... could _want_ another one like... like _that,_ and now I feel so simple for never thinking of it.” 

“Nor should you. S'not a natural impulse for a man to have, and I were a fool to think he might,” Thomas said tersely, repeating the sentiment that most people had for his ilk. “I were a fool to try and a fool to let him break my heart.” 

Lady Rose looked like she might be moved to tears by Thomas's words, which thoroughly surprised him. “How could you ever say that?” she wondered, inching towards the rim of the street light that separated her from the underbutler. “Love is asking to be loved, Thomas. Don't you see how beautiful it is that you loved someone so freely? That you loved someone so much you didn't care about anything save being around him and only him?”

Thomas took a nervous step backwards, mumbling, “And what would you understand about how it is to want something you could never have?”

Lady Rose took a resolute step out of the gaslight, not about to let Thomas fade entirely into shadow. She reached out for him, dropping his overcoat and bowler in favor of catching a knot of his waistcoat in her fingers. “Because,” she said, holding the startled servant with an arresting look he had never seen in her eyes before. Her fingers curled tightly around the fabric in her fist, and she told him her own hidden truth: “Because the first one I ever well and truly loved had the wrong accent and the wrong  _color_ . Because all he had to offer was his voice and his song, not titles or money or any of those things that matter  _so much_ to my mother or Mary or  _any_ of them. Just the things that matter so, so much to  _me._ ” 

Fiery tears were glowing in the puddles of street light splashing against Lady Rose's cheeks as she gave Thomas a shake with the hand that gripped his clothing, though she had captivated him with her words so much that there was no need for her to keep hold of him. Extending the photographs back towards their rightful owner, she concluded in a whisper, “So please, Thomas: please, don't tell me I can't know what it means to feel a hopeless love.”

Thomas quietly took the photographs back, though this time he had no need to quickly squirrel them out of sight. He had spent so long isolated in his misery that he had forgotten the world was full of other sorrows besides his own. Addressing his shoes, he mumbled, “Forgive me, m'lady. I... I didn't know.”

“Don't worry about it too much. No one did, really,” Lady Rose said, somehow able to find a smile in the gloomy air. Thomas found himself both awed and jealous of her ability to harness sunshine at even this dark hour. “But it's alright,” she brightened, throwing him a wan smile; “As you said, at least I can remember it with fondness.” 

“At least,” Thomas said, making a concerted effort to keep from sounding rude. He slowly stepped passed Lady Rose to where she had dropped his bowler and overcoat, stooping to pick them up and shrug them back on. Suddenly, the cold had become troublesome. 

Lady Rose ran to walk by him as they started towards the bus stop once more, grabbing his arm like he was a friend she had treasured all her life. “Tell me about Jimmy,” she said as they moved through the lamplight like specters in the night. “Tell me about his laughter. Tell me about his eyes and his smile – about the way he'd put your feet back on the ground with just a word. Tell me about the moment he walked into your life, how you knew right away that you'd never want him to leave.”

So Thomas did.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song in the dance hall is called "Ain't Misbehavin' " and was written in the late 1920's by Harlem stride pianist, Fats Waller. It's a personal favorite -- and actually period appropriate! Yaaaaay! The most famous recording is probably the one by Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie. 
> 
> I better write faster: I'm only two chapters ahead!


	5. In My Solitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas finds a new lead in tracking down his blackmailer.

Morning did not greet Thomas fondly. His late-night excursion with Lady Rose had caused him to sleep in late, and now someone was banging on his door like the entire house was falling apart without him. Blearily, he swung his feet off his narrow bed in a swath of woolen blankets and sheets, ignoring the shouts from the hallway that Mr. Carson was absolutely livid over his tardiness.

“He'll survive,” Thomas muttered to himself, not about to let even Mr. Carson's wrath guilt him into regretting his outing with Lady Rose. Already coming up with a myriad of excuses related to the planning of the gala, Thomas took his time finding his livery and dressing for the day. This time, when he slid the photographs of Jimmy into his breast pocket, he no longer did it with the same disgrace as he had in days past. In fact, after spending the entire trip back to Downton articulating to Lady Rose every fleeting moment he'd shared with Jimmy, he felt far more confident not only in himself, but also in his resolve to hunt down the blackmail culprit and make him pay dearly for accosting him.

Adjusting his tie in the small mirror that sat on the bureau, Thomas frowned. He hadn't quite brought himself to be able to explain to Lady Rose where the photographs had come from, despite his languid descriptions of his entire complicated relationship with Jimmy. Even if she seemed comfortable hearing him talk about his adoration for another man, he didn't feel right tarnishing the conversation with the reality that such affections were still a punishable crime in the eyes of the law.

“Well, it's not as though it's ever going to just _fade away_ ,” Thomas grimaced at his reflection, his fingers lost somewhere in the half-finished knot of his tie. He tightened the fabric at his throat and arranged his collar, arriving at a decision by the time he'd fastened the last button on his waistcoat. “But I won't let it mean Jimmy's ruin,” he announced to himself as he shrugged on his tails and gave the vest a sharp tug at the hem. 

Someone banged at Thomas's door again as he was dropping his pocket watch into the right pocket of his waistcoat, winding the chain through the button hole and fastening it in the loop of the left one. “Hurry up, please – it' time!” Mr. Carson barked urgently, his feet pounding heavily down the hallway as he headed for the stairs.

“If you don't like it, you can get on with it,” Thomas muttered, buttoning his cuffs. Only then did he remember that Lady Rose's husband and his family were supposed arriving at Downton that day, which actually incited him to pick up the pace. 

He skipped quickly down the attic stairs, hoping he might at least swill a cuppa in the kitchen if breakfast had already been cleared away. Things would surely be hopelessly busy until Lady Rose's party, but he refused to let it be an excuse to avoid his troubles anymore. Work had perhaps kept him afloat in the bleakest of times, but his adherence to such rigor had begun to destroy any sense of self he might still have owned. Pretending like Jimmy didn't hold a very important part of his person simply wouldn't do any longer, and he avowed to do Jimmy this last service of protecting his name, even if it was designed so that the young blond would never hear about it. Perhaps it was his lot to be on the wrong end of an eternally one-sided devotion, but it was somehow calming to accept that if it was to be the story of his life, he could at least rest easy knowing that Jimmy would never have to endure the same ache and misery he did. That alone was enough.

The kitchen was a whirl as Thomas entered. He stepped neatly up to the butcher's block, where a teapot and a few teacups had been abandoned in favor of preparing an early luncheon for the family and their multiplying guest list. He poured himself a cupful of the lukewarm brew and watched Mrs. Patmore fire orders at Ivy and Daisy with the satisfaction of someone enjoying the pictures, practically daring one of them to mention the torn envelope incident with his mere presence. Whether it was because the two girls were intimidated by him or Mrs. Patmore, he was pleased that they were wise enough to keep it from coming up.

When the bells in the servants hall began building the pitch of their daily chorus, Thomas went to wrangle the footmen and assure that the food got up to the dining room while the family was being dressed. Despite all the hubbub of making sure everything was properly laid out for the meal, Thomas's thoughts kept returning to Jimmy and the photographs and what steps he needed to take next. He was growing impatient with waiting for inspiration to strike.

Luckily for Thomas, his agitation would be settled soon. While standing in his usual place by the door to proctor the serving, he overheard a few notable snippets of conversation rise from the chatter at the dining table, beginning with a casual question from the Dowager Countess.

“Lord Sinderby, I hear you took a holiday in the south of France,” Lady Violet mentioned conversationally. “How was that?” 

“Quite lovely,” Lord Sinderby answered over the clink of tableware and crystal. “I believe you're acquainted with Lady Anstruther? We stayed with her at her retreat in the countryside. Marvelous views.” 

“And marvelous wine, surely,” said Lord Grantham, who didn't seem keen to dwell on the subject of Lady Anstruther. The rest of the table laughed politely, somehow able to detect his disapproval for the woman without him having to breathe a direct word about it. 

Thomas stopped listening after that, inwardly churning at the mention of Lady Anstruther. If the Aldridges had been in her company, then it went without saying that their traveling staff had spent time with hers as well. He couldn't think of a better opportunity to shop for information about where those photographs might have originated from – and perhaps how they might have wandered off.  _And maybe a hint of wherever Jimmy went in the first place,_ Thomas couldn't avoid hoping.

When the women went through to the drawing room and then men left to smoke cigars in the library, Thomas abandoned the footmen in the dining room with such speed, he practically left his shadow behind to cast his outline around the place he'd just been standing. If Lord Sinderby's valet was worth his salt, he'd already be making preparations for the shooting excursion planned for his master, Lord Grantham and the young Mr. Aldridge that afternoon. After hastening downstairs, Thomas lingered in the hallway outside the servants hall, ironing out his appearance and adjusting his livery so that he might enter the room with a presence. He wasn't sure why he felt so anxious about doing something he did on a daily basis, but he couldn't help but sense an unseen precipice ahead.

Lord Sinderby's valet was sitting at the table in Thomas's usual chair, cleaning a Mauser rifle for his employer. He fumbled the gun at Thomas's abrupt entrance, which Thomas made every effort to overlook lest he derail his campaign before it had even begun. Resting his hands on the scrolling back crowning the chair in front of him, Thomas attempted what he thought sounded like an unassuming hello.

The valet – a Mr. Raymond Cooke – was a slender young man with dark hair and glasses. He seemed adept at his job, if unsure, which Thomas picked up on immediately and put to his advantage. “First time taking apart a gun, I take it?” Thomas asked, dancing somewhere between distaste and attempted interest.

Cooke faltered at the question, stammering quietly, “No, sir – Mr. Barrow, sir. Just... just these German ones are fiddly and it's only me first time as a proper valet.”

“I see,” said Thomas as he started to round the table and to reposition his hands on the chair beside Cooke. He leaned over to inspect the work, really greasing it on, “Well, you'll soon get the hang of it. S'not much different from winding clocks. Surely you'll remember that if you came up as a footman.” 

“I do, Mr. Barrow. And what the war taught me for it, too,” Cooke answered in a way that reminded Thomas strikingly of Alfred. He lifted the triggering mechanism of the rifle, which had been mostly assembled, and said, “But I can't help but feel like the trigger pins aren't lined up properly and I'd hate for His Lordship to look foolish because he couldn't pop a shot off.” 

“The only one who serves to look foolish in that case is you,” Thomas said matter-of-factly. “Give it.” He didn't wait for Cooke to agree, and instead just plucked the mechanism off the young valet so that he might have a closer look. It had been a long time since Thomas had touched any sort of machinery, but that didn't negate the easiness he felt when he did. There was a certain familiarity and kinship he felt with the small, crooked parts that didn't know how to work without gentle care, often sure that he'd had no better friends in life than the clocks he'd grown up with. As a youth, awkwardly growing into the realization he was different than most other boys, he had comforted himself with the wistful imagining that his clockmaker father had also cobbled him together out of spare gears and unwanted fobs. He rubbed his fingers across the bolt sleeve in his hand and listened for the ticking in his chest, sure that it had since stopped without anyone to wind it. 

Knocking himself from his daydreaming, Thomas stoutly recomposed himself and peered down at the firing mechanism in his hands. “Well, lucky that I was here to save you some embarrassment,” said Thomas, beginning to unscrew the front guard even though he had already determined there wasn't actually anything wrong with the way Cooke had calibrated the weapon.

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Barrow, sir. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it,” said Cooke, his greenness practically oozing from his ears as he held Thomas's every manipulation of the gun in rapt fascination. Frankly, Thomas couldn't believe how easy it was sometimes. 

“Not much shooting to be done in the French countryside, was there?” Thomas said smoothly as he laid out all of the gun's pieces and then began reassembling it exactly as it had been before. 

“Not much of anything to be done there – for the family, at any rate,” said Cooke, leaning an elbow against the edge of the table. Thomas quirked an eyebrow at the young valet in silent question. Cooke explained, “For those of us downstairs, there was no end to the hubbub, that I can safely say.”

“Isn't Lady Anstruther a rather modern hostess?” Thomas baited, though he knew the answer was all to well. “I should think that means _less_ work, not more.” 

“She's a bit _too_ modern if you ask me,” said Cooke, frowning down the length of his arm, plainly agitated by something in his head. “She came right down to the servants hall when we got there like she was _taking stock_ of us without a single announcement or nothin'. And that was just the start of it.” 

“How do you mean?” Thomas tried not to sound too interested, even though he was certain he had a pretty good idea what Cooke meant. He kept his focus directed on his task. 

Cooke got fidgety, suddenly very intent on the place where his elbow connected with the tabletop. He drummed his fingers against the wood, saying darkly, “I shouldn't be saying, Mr. Barrow. Wouldn't do to be spreading rumors about the upstairs folk.”

“No need to be coy, Sinderby. I've had to serve with Lady Anstruther underfoot before, and I assure you it was a fully unpleasant affair,” Thomas said with a shred of sincerity, pausing in his work long enough to fish his cigarettes and lighter out of his livery and fling them towards Cooke, an unspoken suggestion of informality. He cast his eyes down one cheek, watching Cooke closely as the young valet succumbed to the offering and reached for the pack with a rather grateful sounding sigh. 

“Well, you didn't hear it from me, but there weren't much dignity in her behavior 'round the male staff,” Cooke confided, dropping his voice to a harsh whisper as he removed a cigarette from the packet. It wagged in his mouth, unlit, as he continued, “Had to endure it meself. She'd nosing about the servants hall when it was quiet to look in on you if you happened to be alone. Few times she'd sit with me just as we are right now, but not with talk that bears repeatin'.” He flicked the lighter open and sent a twist of smoke curling around his ears. 

Thomas was just refitting the stock and barrel to the firing mechanism, holding the reassembled rifle up to his shoulder so that he might test the action. He pulled back the hammer and took aim just as Ivy happened into the servants hall, smirking as the click of the unloaded gun sent her scattering for the kitchen. “Now don't be like that, Sinderby,” he said, resetting the weapon onto the table, satisfied. He reached for his cigarettes and took one out for himself, sucking his cheeks in as he lit up and took a series of quick puffs. “You can tell me about it. I'm old enough not to turn plum as a schoolgirl over a little gossip.” He turned his chin slightly, his eyes fluttering closed as he took another long, soothing drag.

“It were like, _you know,_ the sort of thing only married folk have business with,” Cooke said, growing visibly flustered. He sucked hard on his cigarette, his fingers thrumming harder against the table top. “Weren't much reserve in making all manner of suggestions about it, neither – that I ought not worry about being found out because the secrecy was the part she liked best. She was quite keen on me, though. I don't know why. Plenty of men in her employ.” 

Barely parting his lips, Thomas let out a yawn of smoke, surveying Cooke with his shrouded gaze. “Are any of them quite young? Or handsome?” He let his gaze rake over the length of the valet and clarified: “Like yourself?” His lips twitched upwards when Cooke became even more noticeably uncomfortable.

“Well, no, now that you mention it,” Cooke admitted despite his visible nervousness. “One of them did make a comment to me when we first arrived: said I'd best watch it – that apparently I fit a profile.” He scanned the table for an ashtray and settled for a forgotten saucer to tip off his cigarette when he couldn't find one close at hand. “She's had a long run of it with the hired help – or so I heard.” 

“How positively unsettling,” Thomas shuddered for more than just the obvious reason. Thomas would be a hypocrite to fault Jimmy for using someone like Lady Anstruther for his own means, but it was another matter entirely when he considered that it was _Jimmy_ who had been played for a fool – someone to be discarded when he was no longer any fun.

“Glad I had the warning right off, me. I might have thought on it, if you want to know the honest truth, Mr. Barrow,” Cooke went on, aggressively stubbing his cigarette into the saucer's dimpled center in lieu of verbalizing that he was still a virgin. “The bloke what spoke to me about it said she were notorious for luring servants to her chambers and keeping them in there by whatever means she can.” 

Thomas was finally starting to hear the things he was probing for. Flicking the cigarette pack back towards Cooke with a snap of his index finger against his thumb, Thomas needled the young valet on: “What kind of means?”

“Oh, Mr. Barrow, I don't rightly know,” Cooke said with a knit brow as he plucked out another cigarette. “I heard she held one chap's job over his head while they had their fun, and another one or two, scintillating pictures she was going to send on to their present employers if they didn't keep it up. I even heard there was one was – you know – _funny_ , and she used that for her own ends. I suppose she just knows how to sniff out a weakness, that one.” He trailed off in favor of the cigarette he'd kept lingering by his mouth, abashed in explaining himself further on that particular note. 

“You make it sound like all those clever boys didn't enjoy their part in it,” Thomas commented dryly, masking his inward revulsion with a mouthful of tobacco smoke. It was distressingly easy to paste a young Jimmy over top of Cooke, curious to experience the world and eager to get ahead without fully considering all the repercussions of diving in blindly. Most likely, Jimmy had gotten off on feeling like he had wrapped a great lady around his little finger just as easily as he'd entwined every other fool that had fallen head-over-heels for his softly curling locks and plump lips. 

“Maybe they did – until they didn't, that is,” Cooke replied with a helpless shrug. 

“And do you any idea what happens to those poor souls? The ones Her Ladyship grew tired of?” Thomas split his fingers into a 'V' as he took a drag and then clipped them back together on the cigarette to flick it towards the sooty saucer between them. He blotted it against the white porcelain, already working out how to blame Cooke for smearing the black streak he was currently leading around the edge. 

“I'm not sure what you want me to tell you, Mr. Barrow,” Cooke said, becoming a little unsure of Thomas's questions. “For all I know, she keeps them in her thrall until they die.” 

“What a sodding, miserable way to go,” mused Thomas, chinking the rim of the saucer with the tip of his nail. He had already worked out that Jimmy was one of the unfortunates who'd been buggered with the discovery that the series of seemingly playful photographs he'd sat for actually served a more strategic purpose. It also dawned on Thomas why Jimmy had signed on at Downton in lieu of following Lady Anstruther to France, something Thomas had always found to be an odd choice for someone who frequently bragged about wanting to travel. He could only imagine that some of the stupid things Jimmy had done in Lady Anstruther's name afterward were tied up in some attempt at a power play on his part – or perhaps just concern for his reputation should she distribute those photos to the wrong individuals. The only question Thomas had left to unravel was why those photographs were now being filtered to _him_. 

The scrape of Cooke's chair against the wooden floor as he shoved away the table caused Thomas realize he had fallen silent for an unnatural period of time. “I really need to get on, but... thank you, Mr. Barrow – for helping with the Mauser, that is,” he was saying as he reached over to gather his master's armament. He cradled it for a moment, considering the brooding underbulter with a cocked head. “And I'm sorry if you've got a friend mixed up in all that business I mentioned. I know you were only trying to work out how to help.”

On that note, he walked away, leaving Thomas with only the ashy saucer for company. Thomas wasn't sure how long he lingered at the table, the growing collection of cigarette butts his only meter for any passage of time. His thoughts, like the hands of a clock in need of a turn, were still stuck on Jimmy and where the aftermath of the situation with Lady Anstruther might have found him. He supposed the former footman might have since found another job, though he wasn't sure what kind of a reference he'd left Downton with. It led him to wonder if Jimmy's future was still somehow locked with Lady Anstruther.

_Did she know about... me? Did Jimmy tell?_ Thomas worried with furrowed brow and cigarette in hand.  _Does she mean to simply to parade what she could have so easily and I could only dream after?_

A wad of anger started to ball up in his chest as the theory evolved in his head, its finer tunings unfurling with every crank it took. Jimmy might not have been wise enough to avoid falling into a silly scandal like the one he did, but that didn't mean that he didn't fan the flame beneath his own ego. He could plausibly imagine Jimmy writing out those sweet nothings on each one of the photographs just to manipulate the situation as best he could. There was absolutely no reason Thomas could conjure that suggested Jimmy wouldn't have enjoyed rustling her up the same way he'd pleasured in meddling with Alfred, Ivy and Daisy. In fact, considering the way the kitchen love triangle had crumbled with just a single kick from Jimmy, it wouldn't have surprised Thomas at all –  _especially_ with the way Jimmy had shrugged and dropped Ivy like a toy he had grown bored of after the damage was done. Thomas still recalled the way Jimmy didn't seem to have any interest in pursuing anyone after that, and he could only assume it was rooted in the fact that Jimmy didn't bother with anything that wasn't guaranteed to be one-hundred per cent entertainment. Pull the pin, throw the grenade and hope it didn't blast your foot off in the process: that had always been Jimmy's method, and Thomas was shamed to admit he had always thrilled in watching the blond's every self-destructive second.

_Perhaps the scandal of openly being found in bed with a footman was too much for even Her Ladyship_ , Thomas concluded, leaning back in his chair far enough so that his neck curved over the back.  _ Suppose we c _ _ouldn't risk airing out the whole sordid fetish, could we? Best get rid of the evidence in one go and leave it to someone easy to blame – someone who no one would miss._ He watched the smoke circle up towards the ceiling, wispy white melding into gray, and decided there couldn't be any other explanation. 

“Now to destroy the old cunt,” he spat with a harsh pull on his ninth cigarette since he'd sat down. He stabbed it dead into the saucer full of burnt out fag ends with malicious fervor. 

“ _Mr. Barrow_!” came Mrs. Hughes' shrill voice, startling Thomas enough that he bent his neck uncomfortably over the chair back as he snapped back into proper form. The housekeeping manager stood in the entryway to the kitchen, the afternoon post under arm. He could only assume by her demeanor that she had heard him swear, but he pretended like he was nonplussed. 

She walked carefully into the room, watching Thomas as though she were stepping around a lounging tiger. Flipping through the bundle of envelopes in her hands, she pulled out a pair and held them out to him, saying, “Quite popular these days, are we?”

“And whose business is it to ask about it?” Thomas snatched the envelopes out of her hand and whisked them into his livery in an effort to dissuade further questioning about it. 

Mrs. Hughes, who also prided herself on an imposing persona, allowed herself a small lapse in demeanor as she pulled out a chair and took a seat beside Thomas. “I've told you before you can confide in me if there's anything upsetting you,” Mrs. Hughes said, setting the rest of the mail next to Thomas's ashtray saucer, which she noted more out of concern than annoyance. “I really wish you would, Thomas.”

Thomas endeavored to write her off, his hooded eyes refusing to meet her face; “I don't know what you could do for me that I couldn't settle on my own.” He pursed his lips, frowning, wishing back to the time when the staff used to fear him instead of pitying him with all their cloying looks. How pathetic he had become.

“I could listen,” Mrs. Hughes offered after a moment of consideration. 

“I don't need your sympathy, and I don't need you to listen,” Thomas derided flatly, reaching for his pack of cigarettes and crumpling it in his bandaged hand when he found it empty. He threw the crushed box across the table, a poor attempt to blow off the internal pressure that had built after discovering the photographs had definitely come from Lady Anstruther. 

“Are you quite sure?” Mrs. Hughes queried as her eyes tracked the box's tumble over the far edge of the tabletop. 

Thomas's upper lip curled. “When have I  _ever_ needed that?” 

“Well, I should say as long as I've known you, if you're wondering,” answered Mrs. Hughes. “Don't think I've forgotten when you first arrived with us, practically abandoned by your father in the kitchen yard. You were fifteen, but if memory serves, you spent the whole afternoon sniffling into my skirts, poor thing,” she recounted, her tone steady as the gaze she pointed at Thomas. “And do you remember what I said to you then?” 

“No,” Thomas lied, turning his head resolutely away lest Mrs. Hughes catch a telltale glimmer in his eye. 

In actuality, Thomas's first day at Downton was one of the clearest memories he possessed. His father, after catching him hanging off the lips of the man who had demonstrated for Thomas that his youthful urges had been grossly misplaced, had quickly sought a job in service for his son in hopes that the lifestyle would keep Thomas safely tucked away from any more insidious temptations. And so, less than a week later, Thomas found himself unceremoniously dumped on Downton's stoop, terribly confused as to why his father had been so furious with him that it warranted committing his only son and apprentice to a lifelong profession so very far away from home. He had sat outside blubbering for the entire two hours that separated his father's departure and Mrs. Hughes' discovery that the new hallboy had been left alone outside. She'd herded him into the kitchen and sat him down with tea and a few biscuits, soothing him with the assurance that Downton was going to be a fine place to grow up. He remembered her so clearly saying, “Certainly you'll miss your loved ones, but if you can at least remember them well – remember the things that made you happy – well, there's no reason for tears, is there.” A plain statement, matter-of-fact, with no room for question.

Her expression softened slightly when she saw Thomas had been glaring pointedly at the corner where the piano lurked. “But it seems like things have taken a turn lately, haven't they?”

It was obvious she had noticed how Thomas's influx of mail had disturbed his regular status quo, but Thomas took his usual tack of pretending like he had no idea what Mrs. Hughes was referring to. The falsehood came out even more naturally than the truth: “Life has never been simpler. I'm coming up in the world and people are finally starting to respect me. What more could there possibly be?”

“You might enjoy trying to _live_ your life,” Mrs. Hughes observed in a motherly fashion. She relaxed her shoulders with a small sigh and leaned back into her seat. “Service can be a taxing lot, but it doesn't have to be a lonely one. Would there be any harm in wanting someone's friendship instead of just respect?” 

Thomas started tapping the rim of the saucer again, each  _tink_ resonating throughout the room like the count of a metronome. “Well, I wouldn't expect you to understand, Mrs. Hughes, but for some of us,  _friendship_ can be more painful than going it alone,” Thomas said with a false smile he had hung over the sarcasm dripping from his teeth. 

After knowing Thomas as long as she had, Mrs. Hughes wasn't fooled, despite the perfection of Thomas's well-rehearsed charade. Striking the heart of the matter, she said, “There's no need to keep pretending like you don't miss Jimmy. We all do, in our own ways.” She added the last bit to attempt sounding less personal.

“Maybe you lot found Jimmy to be a lively bit of fun, but he were a proper friend to me,” snapped Thomas too quickly to shovel the outburst back into his mouth. He frowned at himself, striking the saucer so fiercely that it tipped towards him and showered a dusting of ash over his knuckles. He quickly snapped his finger back, allowing the saucer to flip back and rumble circularly as it resettled itself. “He liked me in spite of myself,” Thomas muttered to himself, though it didn't go unheard by Mrs. Hughes.

“I think we all like you in spite of yourself, Thomas....” 

“ _I_ certainly don't think so,” Thomas ground out tightly, crunching his fist open and closed in lieu of handling a cigarette. The stinging wetness he loathed so much was starting to cloud his eyesight, casting a faint tracing of Jimmy's form over the nearby piano chair. Tersely, he continued: “Jimmy liked the things about me that no one else does. There were no need to pretend to be nice around him because _he_ weren't particularly nice, neither. He let me feel like myself in a place full of people who'd rather watch me choke on my own spit.”

“And yet here you remain,” observed Mrs. Hughes with a small shrug.

Thomas rolled his eyes stubbornly. “I've got too many chips on the table here to just dash it all off at the drop of hat,” he sneered unkindly, though there was a hint of truth beneath his words. Unfurling his fisted hand, he resumed his measured tapping on the saucer, muttering under his breath, “S'not like I have anywhere to go, besides.”

“Thomas, you know Downton is as much your home as anyone else's,” Mrs. Hughes said, genuinely concerned for the underbutler.

“It's only a house. We work here, we shit here, we die here,” Thomas bit back with curdled resentment, not even attempting to curb in his rudeness. “Any hope it ever had of being a home walked out the door a long time ago.” 

“And by that, you mean when Jimmy walked out the door,” Mrs. Hughes responded patiently, no longer seeing sense in pretending that it wasn't implicated in Thomas's every breath. She refused to let Thomas prove himself right by ignoring him when he so obviously needed a touch of kindness in his corner.

Despite her best efforts, the expression that Thomas turned on Mrs. Hughes was twinged with livid fire. Only Baxter had ever dared to hold a lens over his broken heart in such a blatant fashion, which just barely allowed because their fathers had been friends. But for Mrs. Hughes to announce his secret – however open it may have been – in the middle of the servants hall as though she was asking him to tea was something he wasn't quite sure how to manage. So he dealt with it the only way he knew how.

“' _When Jimmy walked out'_ – like it felt to me anything near the way you apparently _managed_ his going,” Thomas spat, the corner of his mouth twitching ever so slightly as his lips punched out the words. “But since you seem so keen to talk about it, go on, then. Tell me how I ought to _manage_ without the only one who ever _wanted_ to spend his time with me in this godforsaken house – the only one who ever tried, even when he had every reason not to.” 

Mrs. Hughes, who had never quite seen Thomas in quite so loquacious and impassioned a form, could only open her mouth like she meant to answer, though her tongue danced around voiceless words. She might have felt it dutiful to look in on the staff when they weren't in top form, just as she was attempting to with Thomas at the moment, but she knew it couldn't compare to the way she'd seen Thomas's solitary evenings in the rocking chair develop into midnights choked in cigarette smoke, snap and Jimmy. And somehow she knew Thomas had never been happier, which just made his resentment all the more sad.

“Nothing to say, have you? Well, I expected as much,” he continued, filling the heavy silence that had developed even amid the downstairs commotion sailing around them. 

“Thomas, I'm not trying to suggest that Jimmy wasn't... special to you,” Mrs. Hughes said with careful slowness, though both of them knew she understood a great deal more about it than either of them felt comfortable mentioning. “But I _do_ think it's unfair to assume the rest of us weren't sad to lose him.” 

The rhythmic finger that Thomas was still tapping against the ashtray saucer folded into a fist, which he slammed through the porcelain dish in a burst of frustration. Ribbons of blood unfurled from the heel of his wrapped hand, unnoticed, as he challenged Mrs. Hughes: “Care to tell me about the last time  _you_ wondered where he's gone off to, then? Whether or not he's happy? When were the last time you thought of Jimmy just to  _think_ of him?” 

At that point, Thomas didn't care if his burgeoning malcontent drove Mrs. Hughes to have Mr. Carson sack him on the spot, for right then, all the stupid things in his day-to-day routine that had kept him teetering within the bounds of sanity had never seemed so unimportant. He didn't care if Mrs. Hughes found him repulsive or unpleasant because he fully intended to be, no longer content with pretending like the crushing weight he'd been holding up for so long wasn't breaking his bones.

Fortunately, Mrs. Hughes wasn't offended by Thomas's display, aware that Thomas had been in a position to be far more affected by Jimmy's situation than everyone else. But she had never seen Thomas tremble in such a way, nor his eyes so weary, and it moved her to recognize Thomas still as the scared little boy that had been left in the yard with no one in the world to care for him all those years ago. Gently, she stretched across the table to pull Thomas's bloodied hand towards her, reaching into a pocket for her handkerchief. Neither said anything as Mrs. Hughes dabbed at the bubbling cuts, though Thomas's clenched hand slowly began to relax in her palm as she continued her ministrations.

“I think about him every day,” Thomas confessed softly, his downcast eyes fluttering momentarily away from his hand to peek at Mrs. Hughes before quickly darting his gaze away. He whispered: “I miss him every day.” 

“I know you do,” replied Mrs. Hughes, giving Thomas's hand a final pat down before standing up and announcing she was going to fetch the first aid kit. She wore a kindly smile, which Thomas supposed might have belonged to the mother he never really knew, as she added, “But the break will mend, Thomas. One day, you'll see.” 

She left him sitting by himself again, alone at the table with the ruins of the saucer and the graveyard of cigarette butts it had borne. The downstairs staff eddied around him in pantomime, the steady thrum of his heart the only sound in his ear, slowly ticking out the endless wait.

–

The insanity of catering to the family when they had guests kept Thomas so busy for the rest of the afternoon that by the time he was climbing the stairs to the attic after dinner, he had almost forgotten about the two new envelopes Mrs. Hughes had delivered to him earlier that day. Safely back in his room, he plucked them out of his pocket along with the other photographs of Jimmy, shrugged off his jacket, and dropped them tiredly onto the bureau, almost too worn out to think about what torture might be in store for him when he slit them open, and continued to undress.

He unbuttoned his cuffs and loosened his sleeve garters, flinging them haphazardly onto the bureau with the envelopes. Then, perched on the edge of his narrow bed, he removed his shoes, socks and sock garters as well, leaving all of them in a slovenly pile on the floor. His pocket watch and tie both got dumped unceremoniously onto the nightstand, despite the fact he didn't usually store either one there, and his waistcoat ended up draped over the bedpost. Then, his agitated feet carried him in a misshapen circle around the room's furniture as he wrangled himself free of his suspenders and pants, which he dropped into another messy pile somewhere else on the floor without a care for the wrinkles he'd have to press out of them later. His shirt fluttered down to land somewhere in between after he tore it off and reassigned himself to the chair by the small writing desk on the other side of the room, where he sat and stared through the chaos he'd wrought, straight to the envelopes that still seemed to illuminate the bureau across the way.

The room was unbearably quiet. Thomas could hear his neighbor scratching about through the walls, the creak and click of every door hinge and latch in the hallway outside. He desperately wanted a cigarette, but didn't trust himself to go rooting through the bureau for his spare pack without ripping into the envelopes first. His heart ached to give in, but his weary mind protested adamantly, desperately trying to remind him how to be careful. Heavy with the fatigue of running himself around it, he wondered when he'd gotten so old, despite the youthful hands that still rested in his lap.

In the end, his addictions won out. Crossing the floor in a series of neat strides with a letter opener from the desk in hand, he yanked open the top drawer and retrieved a cigarette from the packet stashed beneath his socks and gloves, immediately setting it aflame with a smooth flick of the lighter lying in his cufflinks tray. With the fag pillowed on his lip and a coronet of smoke wafting around his head, Thomas picked up the two new envelopes from Sheffield and lifted a curious eyebrow when he noticed that one of them actually bore a return address. Something told him that one had originally been intended to arrive last, so he took the letter knife to the other one first.

Another photograph of Jimmy fell into his palm when he shook the envelope out. The sepia hues chiseled out his handsome shape, sprawled comfortably on a brocaded settee with one foot hitched against its low arm, the other dragging through a sea of duvets on the floor. Jimmy's shirt was pooling off his shoulder to reveal the angle of his collarbones and the cut of his hewed abdomen, his high-draped pants loose and unbuttoned to trace dangerous lines down the shape of his hips. A hint of tongue peeked between Jimmy's pert lips, his eyes betraying the guise of innocence with a glint of mischief. On the back, the familiar handwriting spelled out another teasing phrase:  _“You took the part that once was my heart.”_

Thomas was nearly unmade by the coquettish expression Jimmy wore in the photograph, holding it up to whisper labored breaths of cigarette smoke at it, while his mind wandered through the shadows cast beneath Jimmy's unfastened pants. He was almost afraid to open the next envelope, but it was all he could do to keep himself from taking the photograph he held to bed with him right then and there.

With the letter knife poised to make the incision, Thomas took note of the address on the final envelope. Interestingly, the street described there was in Ripon, which left Thomas wondering how the envelopes had started out in Sheffield in the first place. He vaguely recalled Mr. Maxwell mentioning that the valet who had left the bundle of letters at the post office seemed like someone from out of town, which left Thomas wondering if it was possible to figure out what earl or lord had been passing through Sheffield at the time – and how he was acquainted with Lady Anstruther. Regardless, he would most certainly be calling upon that specified door in Ripon as soon as possible.

In the meantime, he could open the envelope and continue his experiments in masochism. If Thomas had been unfairly taunted by the first new arrival, the photograph he removed this time was doubly cruel. The photograph featured Jimmy standing at the foot of a large Queen Anne bed with his back to the camera, his chin tucked into his shoulder so that he could throw an expression of desire back at the lens. He was entirely nude, the gentle light in the room caressing the turn of his back and the curve of his buttocks. Thomas's mouth went dry and the cigarette dangling from his lips threatened to plummet straight down into his sock drawer as he stared at the unbearably beautiful image. He found himself marveling at the smallest details of Jimmy's person, like the way he had one foot crossed over the back of the other ankle, his toes curling just so against the oriental rug beneath him, or the splay of his fingers around the bedpost; the way his unstyled hair still spun against his brow in waves, and the exact contour of his profiled lips, the bridge of his nose and his long, dark lashes, which lay softly against his cheeks even as his irises glimmered beneath them.

  
Thomas turned the photograph over both to soothe the ache that had dropped from his rapidly beating heart down towards his groin, and also to look for the expected notation. There, just as with the other four images, in the bottom-right corner, it read,  _“You took the best, so why not take the rest?”_

“God, what I would do to you if I could,” Thomas mumbled around his cigarette, which he was in danger of chomping right through as he reread the words and let them play freely in the depths of his imagination. Every sordid fantasy of bedding Jimmy he'd ever conjured came roaring to life in glorious detail, more enhanced than they'd ever been before: countless scenarios that involved him dragging the blond footman over nearly every piece of furniture in the house to kiss him in ways he was sure Jimmy had never dreamed. But the ones Thomas took the most pleasure in were any that elicited all the little sounds he thought Jimmy might make with Thomas wrapped between his thighs, how he might pant and sigh and beg to feel Thomas inside him – how he might throw back his head and scream that he loved him loud enough for the whole house to hear. 

Suffice to say, Thomas didn't end up returning to the servants hall to read the newspaper in his usual evening fashion, as he was soon far too ensnared in the twist of his sheets to even hope of leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Be Continued :) 
> 
> Hope you guys are still enjoying it as much as I'm enjoying writing it, hurpadurp. Title's a Duke Ellington tune that's... pretty ridiculously Thommy, haha.


	6. Stormy Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas finally holds all the pieces of the puzzle.

Lady Rose's birthday was fast approaching, and with each day, the house grew more and more lively. Thomas ended up having to elaborate on a lie to Mr. Carson in order to escape to Ripon that afternoon. If there were any repercussions to be had for it, Thomas decided he would figure it out when the need arose. There was absolutely no way he was going to sit on that address any longer than he had to: trying to ignore it for a more convenient hour would probably have shredded what remained of his already fragmented sanity.

The trip to Ripon was a lot more melancholy when he had to endure it by himself. It reminded him very pointedly that he didn't have any real friends, which only left him wishing Jimmy knew how much he needed him. Now it seemed like all he had was the endless ennui of waiting for something to happen to him, certain that the only real event there was to look forward to was the day he died. He wondered if anyone would actually miss him when he did.

It was raining by the time the bus dropped off in Ripon, and Thomas wasn't carrying an umbrella, so he got drenched as he rushed through the streets towards the address that had been on the last envelope. In his sodden journey, hurrying through the downpour as he was, he almost blazed right by his destination, which turned out to be a narrow storefront just off the high street. The front window was dim, almost giving the impression of being closed, and bore the words _'Turner's Piano Tuners'_ in large, gold letters, underscored in smaller, black typeface with: _'Instrument Repair, Sheet Music, Records'._ He double-checked the address just to be sure he was at the correct door, somehow made uneasy by its unexpected nature.

A bell shivered as Thomas opened the door to Turner's, which was revealed to be a cramped space overwhelmed by a tightly-knit maze of nearly every breed of piano Thomas could imagine: uprights like the one in the servants hall, players, harpsichords, even a baby grand, which was shoved into a back corner beneath a drab sheet. Intermittently dispersed around the pianos were shelves crammed with records and books of music, punctuated here and there by an odd cello or lost violin; a tuba reclined against the wall just beside the entryway where Thomas stood dumbly, soaked and wary as he peered into the amber-lit space in search of a shopkeeper.

Thomas soon found who he was looking for sitting on a high stool by a brass cash register in the back of the shop. As he approached the counter, he was mildly surprised to recognize the shopkeeper as the same man who had sold him the records for Lady Rose the week before. The reaction was fleeting, though, as he found it highly suspect that someone he had come across before also happened to be lurking at the other end of the rabbit hole. He kept his face tensed with distaste as he announced himself with a sharp, “Hello?”

“Hello, yourself,” answered the record dealer – presumably Mr. Turner. He was in the process of winding a small gramophone, which sat beside the cash resister. An American voice filled the room as he dropped the needle on the spinning vinyl, proclaiming in a robust tone:

 

“ _Don't know why_

_There's no sun up in the sky?_

_Stormy weather,_

_Since my man and I ain't together....”_

 

Removing his derby and smoothing out his dripping hair, Thomas decided it would be best to just get right to the point. “I had a letter in the post that indicated this address as the return,” he said succinctly. He scrutinized the middle-aged record dealer, trying to decide if someone could presumably mistake him for a valet.

“Is that so, eh? Mr. Barrow, is it? You're earlier than I expected.” Mr. Turner's attitude remained frustratingly lackadaisical, even as he slid off his stool to start thumbing through a pile of albums sitting on the back counter.

“Earlier than _what_?” Thomas hissed, not at all pleased that this resolution was only the beginning of more questions.

“Well, I'd been asked to hold something for you, but I were also told you shouldn't know to collect it for at least another week,” the man chattered, finally unearthing the record sleeve he was looking for, though it was hard to say what distinguished its brown paper wrapping from the rest of the nondescript album jackets in the pile. He slide it across the counter for Thomas to pick up, adding, “Don't worry – it's already been paid for.”

Thomas tentatively neared the counter, eying the record like it was something that could leap up and bite him. He could just make out the word _'Barrow'_ penciled lightly into the paper sleeve, but besides that, there was nothing to indicate anything else about who was responsible. He certainly hadn't expected to be presented with a gift, but he kept his wits about him, sure there was some trick to it. Already, he wasn't particularly fond of the shopkeeper. “And how'd you know this were for me?” Thomas asked, making every effort to keep his tone even.

“Well, I can't say I expected you'd turn out to be that smarmy butler from last week, if that's what you mean,” Mr. Turner retorted, indicating he remembered Thomas's honeyed swindle with a narrowed glare. “But it were a favor for an old customer who thought you might like it. He said he'd write you about it and indicate where to go.”

The explanation was wholly confusing to Thomas, but he tried not to let it show. “I can't say I have many friends who would be so _considerate_ ,” he said icily.

“I can't imagine _why not_ ,” was Mr. Turner's acerbic retort. He was leaning casually against the counter like he had nothing else to do with his day but rib Thomas on.

When Thomas was finally close enough to touch the record, he reached out with the same uncertainty with which he'd stepped up to the counter in the first place. Staring down at his fingers as they gingerly traced the outline of his name on the sleeve, Thomas noted the handwriting did not match the lettering found on the photographs of Jimmy. He supposed the shopkeeper had written it, which eliminated him as the caper's true culprit, much to Thomas's chagrin. He asked, “And just who might this mysterious benefactor be, then?”

“I can't rightly say who he is. Just this lad who used to come in once in a while to use the gramophone and toodle around on some of the old instruments,” Mr. Turner shrugged, which frustrated Thomas to no end. “I haven't seen him in an age, though. Shame, really. He weren't half bad at playing stride.”

“Then how did you end up with _this_?” Thomas asked, pressing his finger into the pencil marks.

“Oh, he wrote me. Came over from America, it did,” answered Mr. Turner with another easy toss of his shoulders. “Sent along a few quid for me trouble, asked that I wrap it up special and to hang onto it until you turned up – said I'd know you straight away. And here you are.”

 

“ _When he went away,_

_The blues came in and met me.  
If he stays away, _

_Old rocking chair's gonna get me.”_

 

The gramophone sang into Thomas's ear distractingly as tried to work out how he was going to track down someone who seemed to be in a different part of the world at every turn. He hoped his stress wasn't apparent in his expression as he asked, “Well, can you at least remember anything about this person? The note that sent me here were quite... ambiguous.”

“Was it, now?” Mr. Turner's curious reply, like he was inwardly amused by a joke Thomas didn't understand.

Thomas didn't appreciate such a droll attitude, a disdain which was more than apparent in his voice. “What's he like, then?” he asked with a slight curl to his upper lip.

“Oh, like most lads his age, I suppose – for the most part, anyway. Though, come to it, I remember his ear for music more than his face, if truth be told,” said Mr. Turner with another one of his characteristically annoying shrugs. He eyed Thomas like he was just taking stock of his appearance for the first time since Thomas had come in, and then added, “Though I must say, you're quite a funny one to be leaving a gift for. S'pose I should have expected that, really.”

Thomas immediately soured at the comment, once again reminded of the plot that had led him to this place and that he might have lingered dangerously long. He snatched up the record, which wouldn't do to be left behind with his name written on the jacket, and stuffed it under his overcoat, pressing his derby back onto his head with enough force to crush the hat's peak before turning on his heel to go. The gramophone chorused a spirited farewell as he wrenched open the shop's door, whose bell jangled with inappropriate cheer, and ducked back out into the downpour.

 

“ _...Stormy weather,_

_Since my man and I ain't together,_

_Keeps raining all the time.”_

 

–

 

“ _Thomas_ , where in God's name have you _been_?” Mr. Carson fumed when Thomas returned to Downton, crawling through the back door like a drowned rat. “Just look at you. Lady Rose has been ringing for you since half past and you're in _no state_ to be seen in her presence. Good God....”

Thomas tuned him out, far too cold and miserable to be concerned about Mr. Carson's first world problems. Shivering, he stood by the sideboard in the kitchen and shed his sopping overcoat and hat onto a nearby chair, careful to keep the record safely under arm once he'd removed the wettest of his garments. Mrs. Patmore had instinctively known to put a kettle on the stove the moment she'd seen him soaked through, which Thomas was secretly grateful for, even if he would die before admitting it out loud.

“I thought you said you were running an errand _for_ Lady Rose,” Mr. Carson was still complaining, though Thomas was far more focused on readying a teacup for himself. “ _Why_ would she be looking for you if she already knew you weren't in the house?”

“The rain kept me, if you must know,” Thomas said around a sneer as he spooned a heaping serving of rosehip tealeaves into the pot on the counter. He argued back knowing his rank generally precluded him from the indignation Mr. Carson reserved for footmen and hallboys.

Mr. Carson capped his insult with a very strained expression that seemed to be all that separated Thomas from intimate knowledge of all the cuss words Mr. Carson pretended not to know. “Well, you should have at least rung ahead,” he said gratingly. “And for God's sake, get yourself into something decent. You look like you belong in the trenches.”

Thomas narrowed his eyes to the side at Mr. Carson as he left the kitchen, frowning as he thought, _Maybe I do: dead and buried at the bottom of one._

No sooner had the idea filled his head did the kettle let out a blubbering shriek that filled the stove's corner with a cloud of steam. Mrs. Patmore lifted it with unseen strength and hefted it to the teapot, which she filled with a steady pour. “Don't worry, I won't be tellin' Daisy or Ivy about it,” she assured Thomas as she did so.

“Telling Daisy or Ivy about _what_?” Thomas fumed. Lately, it seemed like everybody had something to say about him. He glared at the teapot like his stare might make the brew steep faster.

Mrs. Patmore abruptly changed gears, sensing that her topic of choice was an unwelcome one, but not without sending a significant glance at the record Thomas had laid beside his teacup. She returned the kettle to the stove top and busied herself with some other task that kept her back turned towards the disgruntled underbutler. With scissored motions, he strained himself a cuppa and remained standing in the middle of the kitchen to sip it.

Just as he was finishing tea, an unexpected herald from Mr. Carson echoed from the hallway: “M'lady! There's no need for you to come out of your way like this.”

“Oh, I just thought I'd pop down and look in on Thomas. I know he's terribly busy,” came the answer. It was Lady Rose.

Hastily, Thomas abandoned the teacup on the butcher's block and gathered up the record, his overcoat and derby in an effort to look like he'd literally just walked in the door. Mr. Carson was already escorting Lady Rose into the kitchen, speaking as he followed her in; “I suppose it was a bit of a stretch to send him on to Ripon with all his other _duties_ ,” he was saying as he aimed a glare at Thomas over Lady Rose's shoulder.

Thankfully, Lady Rose was a bit sharper on the uptake than Mr. Carson. She glanced at Thomas's wholly pathetic appearance, quickly honing in on the record that just peeked out from underneath his overcoat, which was draped over one arm. “I... I know, but....” Her verbal stumble was momentary, as she soon regained her footing and turned to face Mr. Carson; “But I simply _had_ to have this one particular song for my party and Thomas was such a _dear_ to go out into this dreadful weather to track it down for me. Isn't that right, Thomas?”

“As you say, m'lady,” Thomas smirked, unable to repress the victory rally that had suddenly manifested in the pit of his stomach. He made a point to shimmy his jacket further up his arm so that the record was more clearly seen in his hand.

The fluster that rose to Mr. Carson's cheeks and colored his nose was wholly comical. He stormed out of the room with the air of a disgruntled penguin, leaving Lady Rose to stifle her giggles on her own. “I don't mind waiting for you to change into something suitable. Then we can see how it sounds,” she said to Thomas, reaching for the record in his hand. She spoke with an openness Thomas personally wouldn't have chosen to keep in the presence of Mrs. Patmore, who was still lingering by the stove, but he instead simply quirked his lips upwards and followed through on her direction.

“First, ladies marry chauffeurs, and now ladies are waiting for servants,” he heard Mrs. Patmore comment as he was leaving; “I think I can safely say I've seen everything.”

He wasn't sure whether or not he should be glad that Lady Rose seemed to find her hilarious.

 

–

 

With the rainwater that was still beaded in his hair the only memory of his journey outside, Thomas returned to the servants hall dressed in his livery to find Lady Rose sitting at the piano, slowly plunking her way through the scales. She was concentrating very hard on her hand placement, but it was apparent even to Thomas, who only had rudimentary musical knowledge, that she wasn't a natural talent like Jimmy.

He rounded the table, dragging a nearby chair to position by the piano. He sat down, noting that the record was leaning against the music rack, and subconsciously started rifling through his jacket for the pack of cigarettes he'd just stashed there. He lit one up and leaned back, not caring if Mr. Carson should happen upon such a relaxed scene: he was fairly certain Lady Rose would vouch for him if the need arose. He even went so far as to leave the packet of cigarettes and lighter on the edge of the piano for her convenience.

“Oh, it's useless,” bemoaned Lady Rose, crushing her fingers into the keys with a toneless ring of finality. She eyed the cigarettes as though she were trying to decide if she could get away with smoking one in the house, eventually giving in and plucking up the pack to fish one out for herself. As she daintily placed on in her mouth, she glanced over at Thomas, who was languishing in his most comfortable element, and asked, “Do you think Jimmy ever had trouble like this when he was learning?”

“I couldn't tell you, m'lady,” said Thomas, whose eyes were just a flutter short of being closed. “He were always brilliant at it as far as I ever knew.”

“How marvelous to be,” Lady Rose sighed, bending to light her cigarette. She seemed to lose herself in the wisp of smoke that trailed from the tip of it before commenting in a lower tone, “I was told once that playing music was something as natural as the voice you speak with.”

“Your band leader, was it?” Thomas asked, taking a long pull on his cigarette. His memory of the African American singer's visit to Downton had been blurred by its previous unimportance, but hearing Lady Rose detail the trials she'd encountered in even just spending time with him made Thomas want to think back on Jack Ross more fondly, distinctly able to relate to many of the same particulars. He often found himself amazed that such a thing had bred a most unexpected kinship with Lady Rose of all people.

“Is it that obvious?” she asked with a smile, her eyes darting around for an ashtray. Thomas blindly held out the one he'd been cradling on his knee when he heard her scuffle.

“Yeah. Quite,” he said, his hand bobbing slightly as she ashed her cigarette into the dish.

“Like you're one to say anything,” Lady Rose retorted, drawing her smoke back to her lips for another drag; “Your face gives you away every time.”

“I should like to think I've made it this far in life by being discreet,” answered Thomas. He peered up to glare at Molesley, who had skidded to a stop on his way through the servants hall when he'd noticed Lady Rose sitting so casually at the piano. Thomas snarled at him with a tiny snap of his teeth and a toss of his head, silently commanding him to get on.

Lady Rose hadn't noticed any of the commotion behind her, her focus instead on the array of ebony and ivory keys before her. She tentatively pressed an index finger upon a random note, saying quietly, “With that look you get in your eyes sometimes, I don't think it could be much of a secret from anybody.”

“It has to be, m'lady. Even when it's not,” Thomas said flatly through a flight of tobacco smoke. He tipped his cigarette into the ashtray he was still holding and explained, “It's different when these sorts of things happen to us down here. You're lucky; you have someone like Lady Mary to help keep it quiet when you dally outside the lines, but me – I'm all on me own when it comes to reputation.” He paused long enough to suck in another mouthful of smoke, expelling it as he finished with: “In service, your whole life can be broken by one wrong breath. We don't have room to share secrets, nice as it might be to. And mine... well, it's quite an unwanted one, as I've said. Best to forget it.”

“Stuff and nonsense! You won't forget it and neither will I,” Lady Rose chided with a frown, glancing over her shoulder at the grim underbutler. His words didn't agree with the expression drawn over his gaunt features, the distinct contour of his lips shaped as though he were on the verge of murmuring something gentle and sweet about Jimmy, but was afraid to give life to the sentiment. Lady Rose found it particularly disheartening that Thomas had clearly come to believe all the terrible things that people told him – that he'd become ashamed to even be. She said, “The world is changing all around us, Thomas. You love him and that's flat. Soon, we'll live in a modern society that won't mind _who_ you want to be in love with.”

“Maybe,” mused Thomas, not heartless enough to tell her that she was being incredibly stupid with such a thought, and that all the modernity in the world still wouldn't make Jimmy love him back. “But as it is, the way I'm fixed stands on the wrong side of the law and there's nothing to be done about it,” he went on. “I've been lucky, but I can't count on that forever.”

“Well, I would speak up for you,” Lady Rose declared, leaning over to extinguish her cigarette in Thomas's ashtray.

“You'd lie and swear up and down that I'd like to kiss girls instead?” Thomas asked, rolling his eyes towards her with arched eyebrows, his open mouth pluming smoke. “Because that's what everyone else around here does. It's the only way they can stand to get on with me.”

“I simply don't believe that's true,” Lady Rose insisted, determined to break Thomas of his negative inclinations about himself. “Besides, what kind of person would be so black-hearted that he'd go out of his way just to besmirch you?”

“ _Someone_ would,” Thomas groused, thinking of the photographs of Jimmy. “It's happened before.”

Lady Rose turned to face Thomas fully, even though the underbutler remained in profile towards her. Her tone was even as she demanded in her best upper class tone: “ _Who_?”

Smoke clogged in Thomas's throat at the question, sending him into the sort of coughing fit one might expect out of a schoolboy trying a cigarette for the first time. The ashtray tottered off his lap and collapsed to the floor as Thomas fought to regain his breath. He swooped to the floor to make a hasty attempt at clearing up the mess of fag ends and dust, peering up at Lady Rose through watery eyes to find her still staring at him, resolutely waiting for an answer. Dropping his gaze down to his hands, which had become blackened with swept ash, he thought carefully about what to say. He wouldn't dream of showing the photographs to Lady Rose, but perhaps explaining the situation to her could prove to be an unexpected boon. Righting himself, he set the ashtray on top of the piano and clapped his dirty hands together in an effort to wipe them clean before sitting down again. Then, with a deep breath, he told Lady Rose about the mystery that had led him to the piano shop in Ripon.

“And here we are,” Thomas finished, nodding at the record, which was still propped up on the piano's music rack. “I don't know who sent it or why, so I can't help the suspicion it's from someone who'd like to bring attention to my particular... _tastes_. S'not like it's a short list of people who wouldn't like to see it happen, neither.” He added the last part as a droll reminder to Lady Rose that friendliness wasn't exactly his forte, as she still seemed to be under the false impression that he was wholly likeable. It was different from Jimmy's appreciation for him had been, as that had been rooted in a common understanding that neither of them were very practiced at having friends at all.

“Well, there's only one thing to be done,” Lady Rose decided, staring at the sleeved record leaning in front of her. She picked it up and shoved the piano chair back with a loud scrape against the wooden floor; “We'll have to listen to it straight away!”

Before Thomas knew it, he was practically being dragged by the sleeve to the stairs by Lady Rose, who was always unnaturally thrilled to have an excuse to use the gramophone. He followed her smartly, walking at a brisk clip to keep up with her as she skittered through the halls towards the drawing room. It was strange being in her wake as they passed by Lady Edith and Mr. Branson in the gallery: both of them uttered hellos and smiled at Lady Rose's exuberance as she motored by, but only Mr. Branson acknowledged Thomas's presence, and even then, only just enough to denote that Thomas wasn't just a shadow trailing at Lady Rose's feet. It amazed him how the family could drift through the house as though all the comforts around them somehow danced into place in the hands of ghosts, and it made him spiteful to think that Mr. Branson might have somehow forgotten.

Lady Rose was already pulling the vinyl out of the paper sleeve when Thomas caught up with her in the drawing room. “Something about it has to be a clue of some kind,” she was murmuring as she set it onto the turntable and placed a hand on the wooden-handled crank, pausing long enough to read the label on the record before she sent it spinning. “I at least know the song. It's actually quite popular,” she assessed, turning the handle.

The twinkle of piano keys began the song, soon enhanced by a chorus of brass instrumentation. The tempo was lively, which only left Thomas unprepared for the what the lyrics had in store.

 

“ _All of me,_

_Why not take all of me?_

_Can't you see_

_I'm no good without you?”_

 

Thomas immediately recognized the words from the back of the photographs after reading them hundreds of times. But more so, he recognized the voice that sang them, which was a timbre he would lay in his grave thinking about, for the voice belonged to Jimmy Kent.

The floor swooned beneath Thomas's feet, causing him to fling a hand out against a nearby chair to steady himself. Dazedly, he made his way over to the phonograph, where Lady Rose was holding the paper sleeve and watching him with concerned eyes. He managed to keep his posture as he peered down at the whirling record, but his eyes couldn't catch anything that was printed on the label.

 

“ _Take my lips;_

_I want to lose them._

_Take my arms;_

_I'll never use them.”_

 

“What's wrong, Thomas? What's happened?” Lady Rose asked, glancing between the turntable and the underbutler with a furrowed brow as she tried to work out what could possibly be so alarming about such a fine recording. “Is it the music? Don't you like it?”

Thomas's head barely moved as he attempted to indicate an answer. He wished he could remember how to speak, but his throat was empty.

 

“ _Your goodbye_

_Left me with eyes that cry._

_How can I go on, dear,_

_Without you?_ ”

 

“I can't say I know the band,” Lady Rose continued slowly, still clutching the record sleeve. She considered how undone Thomas had suddenly become and then came to a realization: “The Footnotes,” Lady Rose announced with a snap of her fingers, her face brightening like she'd just worked out a parlor curiosity; “The band is _James_ and the Footnotes.” She seemed particularly pleased with herself.

Thomas could only nod silently with pursed lips. Finding out that Jimmy had somehow landed himself in a band shouldn't have been that much of a surprise, but Thomas still had a hard time grasping the idea of it.

“But Thomas, he's _incredible_ ,” Lady Rose gushed, too impressed by the quality of Jimmy's singing to quite line up how the sound of his voice was so very difficult for Thomas to hear. Jimmy had never been much for singing when he used to mess about on the piano in the servants hall, but sometimes, late at night, when he and Thomas were the only ones left awake, he'd feel inclined to croon whatever popular standard he currently favored while working it out on the keyboard. It had been the closest thing to a secret that was just between just the two of them, and to hear it crackling on a record for anyone to take home and listen in on was a wholly unpleasant experience for Thomas.

 

“ _You took the part_

_That once was my heart,_

_So why not take all of me?”_

 

Initially in search of more information about Jimmy's apparent singing career, Lady Rose was meanwhile examining the unadorned record sleeve more closely, but ended up making a discovery of another sort. She shook the empty sleeve, weighing it to be a bit heavier than it ought to have been, and then pulled the opening wider. Inside, wedged into the bottom crease, was a small envelope that had gone unnoticed in her excitement to put the record onto the gramophone. She dumped it out into her waiting palm to have a look. On its white face was written simply, _'Mr. Barrow'_ in brown ink _._ Wordlessly, she held it out to Thomas, encouraging him to take it with a tiny flick of her wrist.

Unsure as to what Lady Rose was handing him, Thomas took the envelope with uncertainty, carefully turning it over in his hands as he tried to ascertain what it was. He saw the letters forming his name in the old, familiar handwriting he'd come to both love and dread, knowing that whoever had shaped them was the mastermind at the heart of this torturous affair, and immediately felt his stomach wad itself irreversibly around itself. For a moment, he was worried about opening the envelope in front of Lady Rose, his mind already trying to desperately concoct an excuse, but Lady Rose was wittier than he'd given her credit for.

“It's alright; I won't pry,” she said, taking a few steps back to sit down on the nearest sofa, wriggling back into the cushions to wait.

With Jimmy's piano playing wafting around his ears like the heady cigarette smoke that so often floated in his wake, Thomas carefully tore the envelope flap with a pull of one finger through the paper. Inside, as Thomas had come to expect, was another photograph of Jimmy, but he immediately regretted not taking his leave the instant he had a proper look at it. Though more tightly cropped than the other, it was a perfect compliment to the nude photo he'd last received. It was apparent by the framing that this photo had been taken mere moments afterward, this time depicting the entirely naked Jimmy from the toss of his fringe down to the jut of his hipbones, which drew an enticing line just low enough to tease Thomas with an indication of the rest of Jimmy's perfect form. One of Jimmy's hands still rested on the tall bedpost beside him, his other crushed suggestively against his plush lips, his eyes entreating the camera to follow him beneath the duvet.

Thomas's hands quavered as he turned the photograph over in his hands, somehow able to tell that he was about to find the punchline inscribed there.

 

“ _You took the best,_

_So why not take the rest?_

_Hey, baby,_

_Take all of me.”_

 

Just as Jimmy sang the words with punctuated gusto, Thomas read, _“Thomas, take all of me.”_

And his whirring heart nearly cranked itself out of his chest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song playing at the music shop is 'Stormy Weather', and of course, the other is 'All Of Me', both of which were written in the early 1930's -- so we're a biiiiiit early pn both, but I love these songs too much to care, haha. I would suggest listening to the Billie Holiday versions of them because I love her the most, but basically everyone who ever sung a jazz standard in their life has these two in their repertoire.


	7. T'Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas is determined to find out more about Jimmy's band.

Thomas didn't care if the photographs were the work of a blackmailer or Lady Anstruther or God: he had to know the truth about them once and for all. Unfortunately, after the lie to Mr. Carson which Thomas had narrowly avoided being disciplined for, finding the time to look into it before his next day off was nigh upon impossible. Every waiting second he had to endure until then grated on his conscience.

Despite Lady Rose's every effort to be empathetic towards his situation, the rest of his week was fairly miserable, duties and errands and tasks all whizzing around him like shadows he could never hope to arrest. She had promised that she would try and find out what she could about the Footnotes from some of her flapper friends if possible, but Thomas was fairly certain the only place he was going to begin finding any answers was that infernal record shop, loath as he was to return.

In the meantime, he tried to soothe himself by imagining how Jimmy might have wound up leading a band popular enough to have a record. He knew the jazz scene was exploding, but Jimmy had always treated playing the piano more like another peacock feather to strut as opposed to something he really wanted to dedicate his life to. But then again, Thomas wasn't sure Jimmy had  _ever_ wanted to dedicate himself to much of anything before, and he supposed Jimmy would be one to like the sort of attention fame usually brought with it. In the end, the conundrum ended up having the opposite effect on Thomas, instead leaving him wide awake and staring at the rafters through most of the night as he mulled over what kind of fulfilling life Jimmy was probably enjoying without him.  _Probably loaded with parties and liquor and all the pretty girls he could ever want_ , Thomas usually concluded when his body became too exhausted to keep his eyes open _._

When he did sleep, his dreams weren't much better. For three nights, he'd had the same recurring nightmare in which he'd return to his dorm at the end of the day to find Jimmy sitting on his bed, cross-legged and playing a haunting tune on a spectral keyboard Thomas couldn't properly see. He'd glance up and smirk at Thomas the same way each time, like he was well aware of what a tease even just a quirk of his lips could be, before slamming all ten fingers into the invisible ivories to sound an otherworldly gong that would somehow set the room aflame. Every night, Thomas would choke through the fire to try and get to Jimmy, who would continue to grin at him and roll his fingers across unseen keys like he was manipulating the very smoke that clogged Thomas's lungs. Every night, Thomas would wake clutching his throat, unable to breathe.

When Thomas's day off finally arrived, he was terse all through breakfast, giving his plate an unnatural amount of attention. The last thing he needed was for Mr. Carson to decide that some unimportant dalliance was more important than his plans.

“Are you alright, Thomas?” Anna asked from her seat next to him, unable to ignore the way Thomas was rigidly scraping his fork and knife across his dish without actually carrying much food to his mouth. 

“Why wouldn't I be?” Thomas answered blandly, not even so much as glancing in her direction. He'd grown weary of trying to make excuses to the others whenever they thought it convenient to look in on him, and couldn't even be sure what it was in his face that everyone seemed so quick to hone in on when they did. 

“You don't _sound_ particularly sure,” she answered with a sidelong glance at his profile before sending a more concerned look across the table for anyone who'd care to pick it up. 

“ _Ivy_ says it's that his sweetheart stopped writin',” Daisy interrupted as she appeared behind Baxter and Molesley to deliver a platter of eggs from the kitchen. She bent between them to lay the tray onto the table and then straightened, cocking her head seemingly at the breakfast spread as she thought aloud: “But that's silly. Mr. Barrow'd never let himself be so bothered just because someone forgot to _write_. He's much too clever for that, 'inn'it, Mr. Barrow?” 

Comparatively, Thomas was privately rather fond of Daisy when put up against the rest of the staff, but in that moment, he had never wanted to throw a punch harder in his whole life. He dropped his knife and fork in favor of balling his fists under the table, his teeth gnashing behind pursed lips. “Yeah. Much too clever,” he parroted stiffly, all the while thinking about how he was, in actuality, probably the stupidest person alive if such a thing was to be metered by wasted affections.

“Blimey! So he _does_ have a sweetheart?!” Molesley piped up, almost looking indignant that his intuitions on the subject had been proven incorrect. His head swiveled between Thomas and Daisy in pursuit of confirmation. “ _Did_ have one?” he amended cautiously, in case that was the difference in getting an answer. 

“I don't have anyone!” Thomas exploded suddenly, leaping from his chair with such fervor that it clattered to the floor behind him as he stood. Both his hands were flat on either side of his laden plate, but one of the fingers on his left hand still twitched uncontrollably from beneath his wound brace. Burning twin holes through Molesley's forehead with his glare, Thomas spat, “And I'd prefer to keep it that way.” 

“Thought so,” Molesley whispered to Baxter _sotto voce._

The staff resumed their meal, while Thomas tried his best to right the toppled chair and sit down again as though doing so were a normal part of dining. Awkwardness was draped over the table like it was part of the catering, but Thomas would have preferred the weird silence to nosy chatter any day. Fortunately, everyone else was at least smart enough to know that.

It wasn't until after breakfast had been cleared and Thomas was putting on his coat and hat in the kitchen that anyone dared to address him on the subject again. Unsurprisingly, the question came from Daisy, whose slight frame had suddenly materialized from the sink to the exact square of hallway Thomas needed to cross in order to get to the back door. “It's not true, is it?” she pressed, somehow able to appear arresting with her earnest, wide eyes.

Thomas, unable to bring himself to act churlish towards her, sighed patiently: “What isn't?”

“About if you got yourself a sweetheart,” Daisy stated resolutely. “That weren't what made you so upset at breakfast, yeah?” 

“If I remember correctly, you were of the opinion that letters in the mail didn't a tryst make,” said Thomas with a cool frown, shameless in referring to the incident that had torn Jimmy in two. He would probably be eternally bitter about it. 

“Still am!” Daisy rebutted with an indignant yelp. She folded her arms over her flour-crusted apron, explaining, “Ivy don't go back the way we do, Mr. Barrow. If she did, she'd see it's plain it's _Jimmy_ you've been missin', not some stupid _girl_.” 

Thomas's jaw dropped, his lips parted like they meant to form words, though none came out. It took him a few beats to recover, sharply asking, “What've you been getting into? Does Mrs. Patmore hear you go on like this?”

“Eh? What d'ya mean, Mr. Barrow?” Daisy's face was one of genuine confusion, much to Thomas's unending relief. She turned her nose up – something she seemed to have learned from that horrid schoolteacher she'd been seeing – and defended her point as she understood it: “All I know is that when Jimmy came, you smiled lots more. Then you two had a row or sommat, because the pair of you were all out of sorts for an age. But you must've worked it out in the end, because you were right smilin' again an' Jimmy started sittin' at your heels like he were a pup waggin' his tail.”

“So?” Thomas kept his focus on the door looming right behind her, hoping it would keep his expression as emotionless as possible. He didn't need a radio commentary on the whole sordid business. 

“ _So,_ now Jimmy's gone, an' you look weary _all the time_ ,” Daisy punctuated with a nod of her head, trying with difficulty to meet Thomas's distant eyes. “Ivy's stupid. She replaces one bloke with the next faster than you could blink, Mr. Barrow. She couldn't figure how to miss someone if she tried. She don't know what you were like before, so she don't know how good Jimmy were for you – even if he were a cock up for _her_. ” 

Thomas desperately wanted to crumble on the spot and tell her everything, because whether she realized it or not, her observations were a little much for him to bear. But he stayed the course, actually taking extra effort to be even  _more_ static when he answered. “And what do you propose we do about it, hm?” he asked in a voice that didn't sound like it had come from his mouth. 

Daisy had an answer prepared, and she spoke it like it were the only thing to be done. “Smile more, Mr. Barrow. Just a little, like you would do when Jimmy were here,” she said resolutely. She glanced away, when Thomas said nothing, then muttering more to herself, “I'd go mucking over the whole bloody country to drag him back 'ere by his stupid blond mop if it meant you would.”

Admittedly, Thomas was touched by her sentiment, though he would never dare voice it. Instead, he made his best effort to turn the corners of his mouth upwards, though doing so felt like work for a strongman. The tiny glimmer of smile seemed to at least satiate Daisy for the time being, for she flashed him a satisfied grin and stepped out of his path to return to her work. Thomas hurried out of the house without a backwards look, somehow terribly frightened by who might be lurking over his shoulder with more prying questions.

Thomas spent the entire trip to Ripon stressed over what he was going to say when he got to Turner's. He supposed he could blaze in there feigning utter disgust that the music shop had somehow been responsible for peddling scandalous photos of nude men with their records, though he knew such a charade was too personally jarring to be an act that even he could carry out faithfully. Besides, his goal was to try and interrogate Mr. Turner for more explicit information about the scheme behind the record and the photographs, and pitching a fit surely never helped anyone suss out a thing.

When Thomas arrived in Ripon, he hurried straight for the music shop, finding the trek much easier with the afternoon sunlight filtering through the thick, English clouds instead of rain. Approaching the storefront, Thomas knew that the dimly lit store was open despite its appearances, but he couldn't help but shade his eyes and peer through the tarnished glass to the shop's interior in case there were any other customers he'd have to dodge when he went in. Lo and behold, silhouetted through the array of gramophones and trumpets in the window, Thomas could just make out the shape of someone lingering with Mr. Turner by a nickelodeon player piano. Mr. Turner seemed to be fitting a new roll into its mechanism for the benefit of the customer, who had his arms folded over his chest like he was waiting to be impressed. Thomas squinted at the scene as he considered what the safest course of action would be; he couldn't very well go throwing around the sorts of questions he planned to if there was to be an audience.

In the end, he decided to just push in with the same air of importance he usually carried around back at the house. The bell jangled urgently as he entered the shop; the player piano was belching out the tune to ' _Everybody Loves My Baby, But My Baby Don't Love Nobody But Me'_ with unseen hands as Mr. Turner looked up to greet Thomas with a small wave. “If it isn't Mr. Barrow,” Turner said over the music; “Can't say I was expecting to see you again.” 

“Are you quite busy, then?” Thomas glanced around uncomfortably, mystified as to what had become of the other person he'd seen with Mr. Turner. 

“Not particularly,” Mr. Turner shrugged, which irritated Thomas thoroughly.

“Really,” Thomas deadpanned. He threw his chin in the direction of the player piano, deriding the instrument with narrowed eyes; “Could've sworn you had a reason to wind up that racket.” 

Mr. Turner's mouth unfolded into a shape of recognition, which he held just a moment too long for Thomas's liking. But soon Mr. Turner was explaining: “Oh, you must've meant the extra help I got in. Don't pay him any mind; he's simple.”

Thomas wasn't entirely convinced, and he felt no shame in pressing the matter. “So simple he needs to see how a pianola works?” he said with a small twist of his lip. He wanted to be absolutely sure there wouldn't be anyone running straight to the police should something rude come up during his interrogation.

“Well, he's got a job here now, hasn't he? He'd best know!” Mr. Turner snapped with just as much edge in his tone. “Besides,” he went on with one of his infuriating shrugs, “what good is a music shop that isn't filled with _music_?” 

“If that's what it is,” Thomas muttered, still trying to catch sight of the so-called hired help. He found the labyrinth of instruments frustratingly vacant. 

“You don't like it?” Mr. Turner asked, leaning against the player like he was attempting to introduce Thomas to a friend. 

In truth, Thomas didn't mind the music at all. The nuances of Harlem stride might have escaped his realm of expertise, but it at least sounded like something Jimmy would have liked to play. Though he was quite certain that Jimmy would be a sight better at it than a mechanized player piano ever could be.

“Well, maybe that Footnotes recording were a bit more your style?” Mr. Turner changed the subject with almost clairvoyant skill. He leaned over to silence the nickelodeon and then wandered towards one of the bookcases that stood behind another row of pianos. Thomas tentatively followed after him, noting the shelves were packed with records. 

Thomas was careful as ever with his words: “And if it were?”

Mr. Turner flashed Thomas an undecipherable sort of smirk, which once again made him feel like there was a grand joke he wasn't in on. “Well, I were going to say they've got another two or three others if you'd fancy a listen,” he said, turning to start rifling through the selection of paper-wrapped vinyls. It was unclear to Thomas how Mr. Turner seemed to know where any of them were: the stock looked quite disorganized and quite indistinguishable from itself.

“I'd prefer to hear about whoever wanted me to have the first one,” Thomas interjected, though there was a part of him that was curious to know what other songs Jimmy had in his repertoire. 

“I'm afraid I've told all I really can about that,” Mr. Turner said, still sorting through the records, every now and again pulling one out to check its label before pushing it back in with the rest. 

Thomas could feel the ease of his usual contrary defensiveness begin to set in. “Really,” he said again, keeping his unimpressed tone intact; “Then you wouldn't know why I found a rather  _telling_ _note_ packaged up with it?” 

“The note were _telling_ , now, eh?” Mr. Turner commented, still focused on the record shelf. He didn't even cast Thomas a backwards glance as he spoke. “Mind _telling_ what it had to say?” He chortled at his own pun. 

Thomas was having a hard time discerning if Mr. Turner was playing stupid or if he truly had no idea about the photograph of Jimmy. It put him on his guard at any rate. “You mean you weren't in on it?” he asked snidely.

“What's to know? I'm just the messenger.” Another shrug from Mr. Turner as he continued rifling through the shelves. He seemed to have found what he was looking for at last, finally pulling out a pair of paper-wrapped vinyls, which somehow inspired him to let out a small chuckle as he flipped them over in his hands. Shooting Thomas another odd look, which Thomas might have otherwise read as suggestive, Mr. Turner sidestepped him and ambled towards the gramophone by the register. 

“I'm not the sort who takes well to being made fun of,” Thomas protested resolutely to Mr. Turner's back as he stalked after him towards the back of the shop. “If this is a game to you, I'll get you for it.” He had absolutely no reservations about sounding threatening; over the years, he'd found the more abrasive he was, the less likely he was to be disadvantaged – an important thing given his lot in life. 

“I don't think anyone would ever mistake you for the joking sort, Mr. Barrow,” Mr. Turner said with a sardonic expression. 

“Then why did someone think it would be _funny_ to leave me with _that_ ;” he indicated the two records Mr. Turner had laid out on the counter top. Unlike the anonymous sleeve that had encased the record Thomas had collected before, these two both proclaimed 'James and the Footnotes' in large type across the top. One of them had a subscript that read: 'Recorded Live in London!' 

“Who said it were supposed to be funny?” Mr. Turner shrugged. 

“Even worse if it weren't,” Thomas muttered, glaring down at the two Footnotes albums, which somehow carried a taunting presence about them, especially when they advertised song titles such as _'The Saint James Infirmary'_ and _'T'ain't Nobody's Business If I Do'_. 

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe someone were just trying to make you _happy_?” Mr. Turner asked, shooting Thomas an incredulous look. 

“I suspect a lobotomy would do a better job of it,” Thomas snapped rudely.

“Well, that's a bloody shame, then,” said Mr. Turner, his expression deflating. “I should hate to tell that lad he were wasting his efforts on you.” 

“Why should that bother me? I don't even know who he is,” Thomas retorted crisply, not liking the implications in Mr. Turner's comments. It stank of the same sort of damning setup as the photographs themselves. “For all I know, it's you who were stringing me along from the start. Surely by now you've figured out I'd be the right _sort_ for it.”

“You think it's my first day at the races? I see all kinds'a _sorts_ in here. It's a bloody music shop, for God's sake,” Mr. Turner said, no longer putting on his previously jovial airs. He snorted derisively, “But if you wanted me to point you out, I'd say you were the _scheming_ _sort_ first and foremost – just as I took you for that first time I met you at the pub. So busy looking over your shoulder and plotting, plotting, plotting, that all you see is disaster at every turn.”

Flabbergasted, Thomas could only stand there, amazed, as he watched Mr. Turner angrily choose a Footnotes selection for the gramophone without his consultation. Thomas was so used to instilling fear in those around him, he wasn't sure anyone had dared to give him such a verbal lashing since he'd left his father's house. He supposed it had been the product of his miserable life that had left him feeling like he'd been wasted in the first place and that he'd finally reached a point where none of it even mattered anymore, even if he sometimes wished otherwise.

 

“ _There ain't nothing I can do_

_Or nothing I can say_

_That folks don't criticize me....”_

 

Jimmy's voice crackled over the gramophone, somehow able to draw Thomas out of his morose thinking as though he were chanting a magic spell. Despite himself, Thomas couldn't help but marvel at the sound of it, unable to keep himself from imagining what Jimmy's long fingers looked like as they danced across the keyboard in such a complex arrangement – imagining Jimmy's fingers doing any number of things, from flicking a cigarette to dealing cards, shaking his hand, adjusting a lapel, or maybe the sorts of things that were best kept pinned to his fantasies.

“That boy is certainly something, though,” Mr. Turner commented with a toss of his head towards the gramophone, breaking Thomas's reverie. He sounded much less annoyed than he had been moments before, which was slightly off-putting to Thomas, who didn't like being unable to predict the other man's moods. 

“Yeah,” Thomas could only agree dumbly, worried he'd already given too much away. “Certainly something.” 

 

“ _But I'm going to do_

_Just as I want anyway._

_And I don't care what people say!”_

 

“There it is,” Mr. Turner grinned, returning to his ambiguously informed expressions. “Much too good for anyone to dislike – I don't mind saying it. Makes even some of these tried and true ditties sound new.”

“So he's quite popular, then?” Thomas asked softly, his gaze falling to the needle as it rode across the track. He felt stupid even asking the question, knowing full well without Mr. Turner's endorsement that Jimmy was. With a face like that, there was no way he couldn't be. 

“For a small time act, I s'pose so,” answered Mr. Turner, leaning against the counter on folded arms as his fingertips measured out the song's rhythm. “But they'll be big. Just you see what'll happen when those Americans find out how Jimmy Kent can reinvent any tune on a whim.” 

Mr. Turner's diction was casual, but it wasn't enough to keep Thomas from mistaking what he'd said. A spark of warning crackled beneath Thomas's hooded eyelashes as he caught Mr. Turner with an arresting glare. “What did you say?” Thomas asked in a dangerously calm way.

 

“ _If I go to church on Sunday,_

_Then cabaret all day Monday,_

_T'ain't nobody's business if I do.”_

 

Mr. Turner had ripped his attention away from Thomas, re-affixing it on one of the instruments lost elsewhere in the shop. Thomas instinctively searched for his focus, his heightened nerves telling him he'd heard something rustle amid the pianos. Finding nothing, he jerked his head back in Mr. Turner's direction, rephrasing his question with more of a growl: “What do you know about  _Jimmy Kent_ ?” 

“Same as anyone!” Mr. Turner was quick to say, shooting Thomas an concerned look. “Brilliant young pianist discovered playing for tips in a dosshouse near Leicester Square – it's just the sort of story people like to hear in times like these.” He flipped over one of the record sleeves to reveal a small paragraph printed on the reverse side, which detailed more or less the same information. 

“But the label says _James_ ,” Thomas enunciated, a chilled cloak suddenly settling over his shoulders. He jabbed a finger at the slightly offset typeface describing the Footnotes' history: “How'd you know he prefers _Jimmy_?” 

Mr. Turner recovered with grace: “How'd  _you_ , then? Thought jazz were 'a racket' to you.” 

Thomas pursed his lips, frowning at the gramophone as though it would somehow provide him with an easier, more evasive answer than the truth. Instead, it only flooded his head with a torrent of sad hopes that had been dashed against the rocks. That hateful sting was starting to well up in the corners of his eyes, so Thomas bit down on the inside of one cheek and mumbled almost incoherently, “I used to know him. Once.”

 

“ _If my man ain't got no money,_

_And I say, 'Take all mine, honey,'_

_T'ain't nobody's business if I do.”_

 

Mr. Turner let out a long whistle that was seeded with understanding, though Thomas wasn't quite sure what exactly it was that he'd put together.

“It were a long time ago,” Thomas tried feebly, his voice hollow. “It doesn't matter now.” 

“Doesn't seem that way to me,” Mr. Turner observed, reshuffling his folded arms on the countertop, weight shifting from one foot to the other as he arched an eyebrow at Thomas. “To _me,_ it seems like it's never mattered more.” 

Thomas wished he was a shadow, a frequent sentiment that had never seen more appropriate than it did in that moment. If Mr. Turner had guessed the game, Thomas couldn't even bring himself to be bothered by it, regardless of whether or not Mr. Turner minded. The joke had become clear to Thomas: Jimmy had moved on in life – had managed to climb out of a rut and win everything a person could ever want in the world – and here was Thomas, left to rot in the basement of a Yorkshire castle, miserable and alone.

 

“ _If I give him my last nickel,_

_And it leaves me in a pickle,_

_T'ain't nobody's business if I do!”_

 

“People are funny, Mr. Barrow. They do funny things at funny times,” Mr. Turner said in lieu of any reply from Thomas. He wore a serious countenance, quite unlike any that he'd shuffled across his face before. “Sometimes the right time is the wrong time, and then the other way round, too.” 

At that, the only thing Thomas could think of was those four damnable heartbeats he'd counted when he'd kissed Jimmy all those years ago. Never before had he felt his pulse tick with such fervor as it had in that instance, and he knew he'd yet to feel it again. The moment had been all he'd ever wanted, and yet he knew he'd never made a worse mistake in all his life. So, still mumbling, Thomas grudgingly acquiesced: “S'pose so.”

“So maybe you'd best start considering the _time_ ,” Mr. Turner rambled vaguely, gesturing like a waterwheel to emphasize whatever point he was trying to make. “Because so easily the wrong time becomes the _right_ time, and we've gotten so befuddled on our way, we don't even notice.” 

“Quite the philosopher, you,” Thomas grumbled morosely, who had only become more chagrined by Mr. Turner's speech. 

“I told you: I run a music shop. I see all sorts in here,” Mr. Turner answered by way of explanation. A shrug was heaped on at the end. Abruptly, Mr. Turner reached for the gramophone and yanked the needle off the record, cutting Jimmy off mid-phrase to spearhead Thomas with a particularly significant stare as he said: “I won't pretend to know what you're about, Mr. Barrow, but you might do to stop being so afraid.” 

“Well, perhaps there's a lot to be afraid of,” Thomas cleared his throat and folded his hands behind his back, somehow very interested in the woodwork above the counter; “When you're like me,” he justified in a low murmur. 

“You're not alone in it, you know,” Mr. Turner counseled. He removed the record from the turntable and refit it into its sleeve, centering it in front of Thomas like it somehow was central to his meaning. “You can never be certain of anything at all. That alone is frightening enough.” 

“So?” Thomas's defensive shell was beginning to harden around the fragile clockwork in his heart, returning the cynical bite to his tone. For some reason, he flashed back to Daisy and the way he'd snapped at her just the same way in the kitchen that morning. He could see her face pasted right over Mr. Turner's as she'd said so determinedly: _“So now Jimmy's gone and you look weary all the time.”_

Daisy's visage dissipated as Mr. Turner spoke again, but there was still a certain parallel between the two of them that Thomas couldn't shake. “That young lad what asked me to give you the record,” Mr. Turner started; “He weren't certain what you'd think of it. I'd say he were rather terrified you'd want nothing to do with it.”

An exasperated grunt left Thomas's throat as he planted both palms on either side of the Footnotes record, frowning straight through Mr. Turner at the nauseating circle their conversation had taken. “Who  _is_ he?” Thomas asked again, his voice an unwavering tenor. 

“Oh, Mr. Barrow, are you really so proud?” Mr. Turner clucked like an old hen, shaking his head in amazement that Thomas still hadn't pieced together what was so obviously there in front of him: “He's Jimmy Kent.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, duuuuuuuuuuunnn! Maybe the chapter summary should have been: 'In w, hich Thomas is so, so dumb,' haha. 
> 
> Anyway, the song referenced on the pianola was written again by Fats Waller in the late 20's. The song 'The Saint James Infirmary', which is on the B-side of Jimmy's record is an old favorite with a rather convenient title, haha. But it was made famous by Louis Armstrong in the late 20's as well. Aaaaaaand the song referenced lyrically here is 'T'ain't Nobody's Business If I Do', and dates from the early 20's. Take your pick of jazz ladies to have a listen if you'd like :D


	8. Night and Day (Day and Night)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Rose has something to say about Jimmy.

That night, Thomas's nightmares morphed into another animal altogether. Now, in his dreams, Thomas would wake to the sound of a weeping tune that wafted up the attic steps and called him out into the hallway, where the patter of footsteps would resonate from the stairwell with the tease of an impossibly long shadow that hurried towards Thomas and blasted through him with a chill. When he'd descend the stairs, the length of the turning staircase was endless, filled with more shadows that sometimes looked like Jimmy, sometimes other things that instead bore rather unsettling, non-Euclidean geometry. With the haunting lilt of the piano still filling the air, it was as though he was following a slope down into hell itself.

Eventually, the stairs would give out beneath his feet, and Thomas would slip, an unfamiliar sensation that always caused him to jerk violently in his sleep. The fall would leave him in the servants hall, empty and somehow tinged in a color that didn't have a proper name, the piano warbling out its strange melody with invisible hands that made Thomas think of the nickelodeon pianola at Turner's. He'd approach the upright with careful uncertainty, but was always startled by a loud thump from behind just as he was about to get too near. Whirling about would find Jimmy standing at the foot of the stairs with a cold look that reminded Thomas of the nervous way Jimmy used eye him in the wake of the kissing incident. But whenever Thomas would try to reach out to him, Jimmy would turn tail and scamper up the steps like a spooked animal, and try as he might, Thomas was never able to catch him. The dream usually ended when Thomas would lose wind and tumble back down the stairs, which would again stir him in his sleep, this time enough to actually frighten him awake.

After the fourth night of enduring such torture, Thomas decided it would be better to avoid sleeping at all. It exhausted him to languish over the notion that he had somehow pushed Jimmy away without even realizing that he was doing so, making him stalwart in the idea that keeping his thoughts under his own control, and far, far away from the anarchy of his dreams was the most sensible tactic.

It worked reasonably well until he started to notice that, in the haze of the predawn, when his resilience was at its weakest, his mind would start to draw conclusions pertaining to Jimmy's meaning in sending along those photographs. He attempted to ground himself by coldly forcing himself into believing that Jimmy was just out for sport – like how he'd been with Ivy – but it was rarely successful. More often than not, he would spend the end of his nightly vigils on the floor of his room with all six photographs spread out before him, fantasizing what it would be like to have been transported to the world that lived inside them. Years of dreaming about Jimmy had nothing on the fresh imaginings he fabricated when he did: dalliances where he'd recline on that luxurious Queen Anne bed and watch Jimmy slowly shed his clothing in a teasing revue meant just for him; the thrill of lying beneath a naked and aroused Jimmy, who'd pin Thomas down by the wrists and kiss him softly, languidly, while making tiny moans against his lips; Jimmy rolling him across the duvet, laughing as he told Thomas that he loved him.

_Always comes to that,_ Thomas thought as his scarred hand slid across the contour of his hip bone, venturing towards the inner crease of his trousers. He had been wearing his clothes for almost forty-eight hours at this point, and they were starting to look noticeably unpressed.  _Jimmy'd never go in for that soppy sort of stuff_ , Thomas tried to fight, albeit weakly;  _Jimmy doesn't need to be in love with anybody – and nor me, neither. I don't need to be in love with Jimmy bleeding Kent._

In his whole life, stitched together out of thousands and thousands of finely crafted lies as it was, this one was far and away the worst he'd ever come up with.

–

Lady Rose wasn't fooled for a minute when she saw Thomas next. He swore that there was nothing out of sorts, but his eyes were darker than usual and he was slightly less sarcastic than she had grown used to, which, strangely enough, was alarming.

“You look absolutely _haunted_ ,” Lady Rose proclaimed as Thomas served her afternoon tea. They were supposed to go over the finalizations for the gala, which would be upon them before the week was out. Thomas decided he would be relieved when it was all over, camaraderie with Lady Rose notwithstanding. 

“It's been a busy week, m'lady,” Thomas glossed over as nonchalantly as possible. “Catching a few winks is all I could manage.” 

It wasn't a complete falsehood. Thomas had been able to find time for the odd power nap here and there, usually in the rocking chair near the piano, but he was often woken up in the rudest of fashions. Two days prior, not seeing him there, a pair of hallboys that had gotten rowdy with a game of indoor tag and had nearly dumped him out of the rocker by accident. In the wee hours of that very same morning, Thomas had jolted awake on the floor of his room, where he'd withered to sleep out of sheer fatigue, certain he'd heard someone at his door. He'd then had spent the next thirty minutes prowling the corridors in search of what proved to be an imaginary intruder.

“You work too hard, Thomas,” Lady Rose decided as she took the teacup Thomas had proffered her on a serving tray. 

“Idle hands,” Thomas shrugged, returning the tray to the sideboard, where he settled to wait for Lady Rose's next directive. She was overflowing with lists and last-minute ideas that needed to be reined in, but at least it was something to do. 

“Oh, please,” Lady Rose rolled her eyes and sipped at her tea, which Thomas had learned to season with two extra sugar cubes and milk. “Everyone ought to let their hands be idle every now and then. What do we give you days off for?” 

“Just the regular sorts of things that don't fit in anywhere else, m'lady,” Thomas answered. It was exactly the sort of dull comment that had Lady Rose concerned for Thomas's welfare. 

“Well, then what did you do on your last day off?” Lady Rose demanded to know, shooting Thomas the most serious glare she could muster. 

As the color drained from Thomas's face at the question, his first instinct was to lie shamelessly through his teeth. Unfortunately, he was also fairly certain that Lady Rose had enough sense to figure him out if he did, so he went for the next best thing: half-truths. He told her he'd gone out to Ripon to stroll the high street and perhaps buy a new watch chain; he casually mentioned looking in on a few shop windows without being too specific.

“And you didn't go to that music store again? After the business with Jimmy's record?” Lady Rose queried incredulously, her eyebrows leaping high on her forehead. She managed to put two and two together in about the same length of time it took for her expression to resettle; “You _did_ go, didn't you?” she said sharply. 

Thomas was busy examining the tea setting on the sideboard, though there wasn't really much to look at considering it had only been prepared for one. He could feel Lady Rose's eyes boring through his cheek, but he nearly startled out of his skin when he realized she had crept up on him and was practically breathing down his neck. “What's wrong?” she pressed, setting her teacup down on the sideboard with a decisive  _tink_ . 

“Nothing,” Thomas lied, though it was a feeble attempt. He tried to cover it up with a little more embellishment; “It were just a backwards circle in the end.” At least it wasn't a complete lie.

“Well, that's annoying,” Lady Rose said, reaching for the teapot to top herself off. Thomas couldn't decide if he'd have preferred someone to walk in and see such a thing: it would have certainly meant a lashing for him, but it would have at least freed him from this troubling line of questioning. 

She was dropping two  _more_ lumps of sugar into her tea and stirring the brew furiously as she said, “Because I heard back from one of my friends about Jimmy and his band. She says she's seen them in Newcastle before.”

Thomas glanced over at Lady Rose, his interest piqued. “Seems to be all over the place, making quite a little name for himself,” he commented, trying hard not to sound too depressed by the thought.

“I think it sounds perfectly thrilling,” Lady Rose said, though she was giving Thomas that concerned side glance again. “Shouldn't you be happy for him?” 

Thomas couldn't pretend that his feelings on the matter weren't incredibly selfish, but there was no proper way to explain that to Lady Rose. Instead, he said, “I s'pose I just always thought that I'd be seeing him again one day. Little chance for that if the whole world's in love with him, too.”

“Really, you're such a stick-in-the-mud, Thomas,” Lady Rose chided, actually giving him a tiny shove before picking up her teacup and saucer, which she stood sipping next to Thomas in a most irregular fashion. 

Thomas felt like he was a hallboy again, loitering with the other young lads behind the house to sneak stolen beer and roughhouse without Mr. Carson finding out. It brought a nostalgic upturn to the corner of his mouth, even if the words that left it were sad: “You've seen him, m'lady. He could charm the devil to his side with a wink,” said Thomas; “What good could I ever be to him in the face of dancing girls and jazz clubs?”

“Oh, stop being so dreary,” Lady Rose chided again with another small whack at Thomas's arm. An odd glimmer peeked from her eyes as she turned the teacup towards her lips, which Thomas could swear had pipped up into a little smirk. “I'll have you know that at least _dancing girls_ aren't of any interest to lovely Jimmy,” she said mysteriously as she clinked her cup back onto its saucer. 

Thomas shot her a backwards glance, unsure what she was getting at. It was too much to hope for, even if Mr. Turner had filled his head with the soft notion that Jimmy had been testing the proverbial waters with him all this time. Thinking about it too much made him feel squiffy, so he chose not to think about it at all. Not that the effort ever went fully realized.

“My friend said so,” Lady Rose elaborated around another sip of tea. “She's a bit excitable in clubs, to say it mildly. But no amount of gin or flirting seemed to be of particular interest to our man. Come to it, when I mentioned the band at all, that was the first thing she remembered. 'Oh, that lot,' she said; 'Lovely for dancing, but apparently a little _too_ lovely to bother with the likes of me – or anyone.' She said she danced with the trumpeter instead.” 

“Maybe he didn't fancy dancing with someone prettier than him,” Thomas said, masking his real curiosity with a wall of sarcasm. The anecdote was a far cry from the scene Thomas had imagined when he thought of Jimmy as the center of attention in a trendy nightclub, surrounding by adoring hangers-on. 

“I'll admit she called him something rather... rude,” Lady Rose said, again turning to serve herself more tea before Thomas had a chance to take it upon himself. “She said his manners weren't nearly as nice as his voice. Kept to a corner with a scowl on his face whenever the band took a break.” 

Thomas couldn't remember the last time he'd felt a smile bloom so naturally on his face. There was something about Jimmy being unpleasant that was affectionate to Thomas somehow, and it made him laugh, much to Lady Rose's satisfaction. “Never pretended he were nice, m'lady,” said Thomas wryly.

“Says you! You talk about him like he's hung the moon and all the stars with it,” Lady Rose proclaimed, brandishing the teapot in a way that made Thomas worry for its safety. 

“I prefer a little cheek now and again. He were always right charming to me,” Thomas retorted, tilting his chin just enough to suggest the lack of formality their conversation held. Still, his tone dropped to a low murmur as he added, “And I s'pose it's good to know that some things won't change, even if the rest is a whirl.” He plucked the teapot from Lady Rose, refreshed her cup and garnished it with her preferred fixings. 

“So maybe he still thinks of you, too,” Lady Rose suggested with a sage nod as she daintily fingered the latticed teacup handle. She lifted it and spoke into the belled cup before sipping, “If things haven't changed, that is.” 

“S'pose....” Thomas started to speak before he'd fully worked out what he was going to say. He hesitated momentarily, thinking of the photographs and the revelation from Mr. Turner that Jimmy had been responsible for baiting him so tortuously. He licked the inside of his cheek and then bit down, sliding his tongue through his teeth, deciding that if he was going to talk about it, he might as well talk about it with Lady Rose. “S'pose I knew he did,” Thomas finally said. 

The jubilant look that lit up Lady Rose's face was quickly dampened by Thomas's continued thought: “But s'pose I couldn't quite work out the sense in it. S'pose I couldn't tell if it were just Jimmy being  _Jimmy_ , or... or if he were actually... being....” Thomas clawed for a poetic way to say what he was trying to get out, but could only suss out one thing: “...Jimmy....” 

“Maybe it's not as hard as all that,” said Lady Rose. “Maybe he just thinks of you. Maybe it's his _nature_.”

Thomas was starting to think that he had corrupted Lady Rose far too much with knowledge of his lifestyle. “Trust me, m'lady, I sincerely doubt that,” Thomas said, looking away. A flash of Jimmy's angry face as he'd screamed Thomas into the hall after the kissing incident filled Thomas's brain.

Lady Rose became ruffled at Thomas's inability to believe that the world wasn't all gloom and doom. She set her teacup down again with another imposing clatter and put her hands on her hips, trying very hard to make herself inflate to Thomas's height. “Just because he never said it doesn't mean it's not true,” she said firmly. “Sometimes it's hard to know how, even when it's the only thing you've ever wanted.”

“I don't think Jimmy's had trouble getting what he wanted a day in his life,” Thomas said murkily in response to Lady Rose's words. He was still fairly certain Jimmy's motivation in sending him those photographs was rooted in amusement, much as it was with anything else Jimmy liked. It had to be; otherwise, he wasn't sure his heart could take the pain. 

“Maybe it's just harder for him to say the words he never knew how to before,” Lady Rose argued with a rather impassioned stomp of one foot and a bat against the sideboard that made all of the china rattle. “Maybe it's harder to say them to _you_.” 

She was getting worked up much like the time she'd first told him about Jack Ross, which was rather touching, but Thomas held his tongue about it. It was exceedingly difficult to buy into romantic notions quite as easily as Lady Rose when most of his experiences had been anything but, driving his reply into the realm of impertinence: “Only because he's half the world away, in Newcastle or Paris or  _wherever_ ." 

“You know that's not what I mean,” Lady Rose chastised, crossing her arms and bulging her cheeks around an impetuous frown. 

“What, then?” Thomas actually snorted at the notion. “That Jimmy Kent learned how to go soft?” 

“I'd say he was always a bit soft on you,” Lady Rose said, feeling like she could expertly inform an opinion on such things after hearing so much about what Jimmy had been like from Thomas. “Not that it makes it any easier. I should think it sometimes makes it that much worse,” she mused. 

“Well, not so soft that he'd actually do something so stupid as _miss_ me,” Thomas mumbled mostly to himself. He glanced down at the disarray Lady Rose had left the tea tray in and compulsively started to rearrange it, turning the little spoons and teacup handles to their proper angles. _Queen Anne porcelain_ , Thomas noted dryly as he touched the delicate china, unable to think of anything but Jimmy's pale fingers at that. 

“Yet you know he thinks of you,” Lady Rose repeated the very thing that had triggered their discourse in the first place. She was sorely tempted to ask Thomas exactly _how_ he'd discovered that fact, desperate to hear all the details, but she didn't think he would be so willing to talk about it even if she did, so she tried something else: “He's off in Newcastle or Paris or _wherever_ , he won't dance, and you _know_ he thinks of you. What more is there to ask?” 

The answer to that was simple. “I'd like to know why,” Thomas stated plainly, still staring down at the tea tray.

“You know _why_ ,” Lady Rose said with a candor that uncannily resembled the way Thomas had spoken those same words to Jimmy once upon a time. Adjusting her tone to a more gentle one, Lady Rose reached out to pat Thomas's bandaged hand, which rested on the edge of the sideboard, and continued, “Even if you don't think so, you _know_ why.” 

Thomas lifted his gaze from the china, realizing it was the first time he'd actually tried to meet Lady Rose's gaze evenly. His eyes were still pitted and tired, and the horrid sting threatened to ring his lower eyelids, but he felt calmer than he had in almost a full week. “Is it too much to hope for?” he asked her quietly, knowing full well how difficult it had been to cling onto a bruising faith for so long.

Lady Rose brightened at the notion, a skill Thomas secretly found amazing and enviable, and she grinned, “It's never too much to hope that someone might love you, Thomas.”

Thomas actually smiled when she said that, and, for the first time in a long while, was happy to be himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is short, but it's so clooooooose ;D
> 
> Thanks to all who have been reading! Chapter title is a Cole Porter song from the early 30's.


	9. All Of Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An intruder pushes in on the night of the gala.

The gala proved to be a smashing success.

The house was filled with more guests than it had seen in quite some time, and it was all thanks to Thomas's oversight that each one of them had the time of their lives for the duration. There was a formal dinner for Lady Rose, the Crawleys and the Aldridges, followed by an unending stream of dancing, cocktails and butlered hors d'oeuvres for the rest of the night. Thomas found himself constantly running between the kitchen and the drawing room to ensure that no one was slacking in keeping the upstairs folk as full and liquored up as possible, directing the footmen, barking orders at Mrs. Patmore and finally able to lord over Mr. Carson that he was the one in command. Frankly, he was rather in his element.

On his sixth tour of the party, Lady Rose caught him by the wrist and dragged him into a flurry of dancing revelers, doggedly coaxing a few quicksteps and a foxtrot out of him, much to Mr. Carson's abject horror. She was thoroughly sauced, which seemed to be reason enough for the older generation to excuse the sight of a proper lady in the arms of a servant, but she still had plenty to say to Thomas in particular.

“I think we did a rather good job,” she giggled, her cheeks twin splotches of cherry red. She was wearing a gold dress with a dropped waist and onyx beading that shivered around her calves as she moved. 

“As you say, m'lady,” answered Thomas, somehow certain that Mr. Carson was standing somewhere in the room, ready to implode. 

“I still sort of wish we'd done a band,” she said, furrowing her brow at the gramophone in the corner, which was being seen to by Molesley. He was managing fairly, but seemed constantly overwhelmed by the dense selection of records and the incessant cranking the machine needed to run. 

“I'm wouldn't say anyone here minds the difference but you,” Thomas commented, glancing around at the lush scene surrounding him. Lady Rose had invited a number of her socialite friends, all of whom seemed content as long as their glasses never emptied and the dancing didn't stop. Vaguely, Thomas wondered if he was going to have to herd the lot of them out of the house with a pitchfork or a gun once the hour became too obscene. 

“Or you,” Lady Rose giggled, lifting a curled hand to mask the mirthful curl of her mouth. “We could have asked to have _James_ and the Footnotes!” 

Thomas swallowed, worrying himself about unrealized complications that might have arisen if Jimmy had been invited back into the house in such an unexpected manner. “I don't think Mr. Carson would have permitted it,” he deflected with false disinterest, glad that no one else in the room seemed to know the correlation between the band and the former footman.

“Mr. Carson can stuff it. It'd have been great fun for everyone!” Lady Rose exclaimed, her feet skittering out of time with the music as she danced a little doe-see-doe of excitement instead. Thomas had to rein her in with a somewhat dramatic swoop that ended up looking like he'd dipped her, much to the amusement of everyone around them and to Thomas's eternal distaste. 

“I can't say I'd have known what to do, m'lady,” Thomas said quietly as he took lead of their step once more. 

“Of course you do! You'd kiss him!” Lady Rose said without a thought for volume or locale. “You'd kiss him again and again – a kiss for every day he's been away!” 

Thomas visibly paled, tempted to clap a hand over her traitorous mouth even if doing so would get him sacked on the spot. Instead he shushed her with a hiss and swept her off the dance floor to the safety of a chair by the wall. He then stepped quickly over towards Mr. Carson, who was overseeing the bar selection on the sideboard, avoiding his eyes as he muttered, “I think Her Ladyship has had enough for one night.”

Ever the professional, Mr. Carson understood exactly what Thomas was trying to say, though whether he had heard any of the commotion was hard to know. He gave Thomas a glass of water to bring to Lady Rose and then strode off to start winding down the festivities.

It was less of a hassle than Thomas had envisioned to get the guests who weren't staying the night to leave. He was glad that a lot of that dirty work was left to Mr. Carson and the footmen, while he saw to the downstairs end of it. A snap of his fingers was all it took to send a platoon of maids and hallboys up to the drawing room to start clearing away the mess the party had exploded throughout the place, so all that was left to do was settle in the rocking chair like it was a throne and wait with the newspaper on his knee and aperitif in hand.

It was half past three in the morning by the time everything was done, but Thomas was too keyed up to extricate himself from his perch, still hesitant to try for a proper night's sleep. Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes said their good-nights to him and went up to bed on the heels of the rest of the staff, leaving him with blessed silence. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do now that the gala was over; he supposed he'd have to return to taking orders from Mr. Carson as usual, and he had to admit he would miss losing any real excuse to chat with Lady Rose, even if she was silly and hopelessly romantic.  _It was a good dream, just as they always are,_ Thomas thought as he leaned back into the rocker and put a cigarette to his lips;  _Time to wake up and go back to the miserable slog_ . 

Thomas was finally starting to relax, his eyelids fluttering closed as he reclined in the rocker and smoked, when he thought he heard a scuffle coming from the kitchen. Certain that everyone had gone to sleep, Thomas quickly snuffed out his cigarette in the nearby ashtray and perked up at the edge of the seat, shoulders squared and ears keen. Sure enough, another scraping sound came emanating from the same direction as the first, and Thomas soon found himself on his feet, creeping towards it. He desperately hoped it was an intruder: he'd like to have someone to vent his frustrations on, preferably with his fists.

Thomas squinted in the darkness as he stepped out of the warmly lit servants hall and into the shuttered kitchen. Moonlight filtered through the high windows and stained the floor with puddles of dusty celeste blue, which slid across his features as he crept through the room. He could hear the telltale echo of footsteps coming from the hall that rounded the outside of the kitchen and led to the back door. Soundlessly, he glided towards the entryway and peered around the corner.

Just as he'd suspected, outlined in a corona of starlight was a trespasser, denoted as such by the fact that he wore a flat cap and an overcoat, though the shadows that hung in the hallway made it hard to see much more than that. It was also difficult to discern if he had just broken in, or if he was attempting to escape, even if the distinction didn't matter much to Thomas. He cleared his throat and made his presence known at once.

The intruder startled at Thomas's unexpected arrival, panicking momentarily as he weighed up his options. He quickly elected to pull a fast one on Thomas, suddenly barreling towards the underbutler and hanging a sharp turn down the hallway, towards the stairs. Thomas was flung aside in a flurry of tweedy elbows as the thief darted around him, forcing Thomas to think lightly on his feet as well. He didn't take the time to ponder too much on the hows and whys of it, instead taking it at face value that the trespasser knew the layout of the house and would try to double back through the kitchen to get out. Turning hastily on his heel, Thomas rushed back through the moon-splashed blackness towards the amber gaslight flickering in the servants hall.

The glow cast by the hurricane lamp on the mantle assaulted Thomas's eyes as he ran into the servants hall, nearly toppling the chairs at the foot of the table as he maneuvered around the furniture to the other entrance. He skidded to a stop just in time for the intruder to come flying into the room in accordance to his prediction, their chests slamming into one another as Thomas threw himself into the other man's path.  _Who needs sleep?_ Thomas thought drolly as he stumbled backwards into another chair, gripping the top of it for support. He shook off the daze of the impact and lifted his chin to get a good look at the vagrant who was now sprawled on the floor, ready to lay into him with both knuckles and sarcasm for such a late-night interruption. 

He lost all such motivation when he realized he was staring down at none other than Jimmy Kent.

“Bleedin' Christ, Mr. Barrow, I think you knocked me soul out,” Jimmy was grumbling as he sat up, a hand automatically pushing his wavy fringe back into place. His newsboy cap had flopped to the ground when he'd fallen, and his coat was askew, but he still looked exactly as Thomas remembered him. 

“What're you doing here?” Thomas ground out flatly, too overwhelmed to even consider the best thing to say, nevermind he'd spent years to playing out this exact scenario over and over. He supposed he had grown so used to Jimmy's ghost, it was hard for the sight of him to sink in properly. Surreptitiously, he banged an elbow against the chair in case it would be enough to wake him up. He earned nothing but a shooting pain up his arm. 

Jimmy laughed awkwardly. It was clear running into Thomas in such a way had not been a part of his plan – whatever that had been. “D'ya want the long or the short version?” he wanted to know, busying himself with standing up and fixing his coat. He bent to pick up his cap, which he then used to beat a layer of imaginary dirt off his trousers.

“ _Talk_ ,” Thomas commanded, crossing his arms. He wore a frown because it was the easiest way to protect the surging emotions that were rattling in his chest. Dimly, he could hear Lady Rose giggling in the back of his head: _“You'd kiss him again and again – a kiss for every day....”_

Jimmy attempted to appear nonplussed, though the nervous way he was fiddling with his hat gave him away. “Sounds silly, but Lady Rose is apparently a fan of me band,” he started, unable to keep his eyes focused on any one place. “She wanted us for some shindig she were havin', but I didn't think it were such a good idea, y'know, with... with how things went. But she said I ought to look in anyway....”

“That's not why you're here,” Thomas sighed as he pulled out the chair he was leaning on and sat down, sensing this was going to be the sort of conversation that required cigarettes and maybe some pilfered wine from Mr. Carson's office.

“Well, that's the short version,” Jimmy retorted somewhat defensively. 

“S'pose you might as well tell me the long way of it, then,” Thomas sighed, already delving into his jacket for his cigarettes. As he did, his hand brushed across the pocket where he kept those beautiful photographs of Jimmy with him. Each image flashed through his head, which Thomas fought to repress, unwilling to let himself fall to pieces before he could be absolutely sure of what the reason for them was. He had speculated wrong at every turn with Jimmy, so this time, he thought it would be safest to wait to hear it from the source first. He opened the packet of cigarettes and pulled out two, one of which he extended to the blond. “Just... talk,” he said hardly above a whisper, unsure how to articulate to Jimmy that all he wanted was just to listen to his voice the whole night through. 

Jimmy eagerly plucked the cigarette out of Thomas's hand, twiddling it through his fingers while he waited for Thomas to spark up and hand him the lighter. He dallied in answering as he flicked the little flame against the cigarette's tip and took a few settling puffs. “I s'pose you got me record,” Jimmy started carefully. “Mr. Turner phoned to let me know you did.”

“And it were an unfair joke to play,” Thomas said slowly, hoping that he wouldn't let slip something to put Jimmy off. 

“Didn't mean it as a joke!” Jimmy yelped with unexpected passion. He coughed on a mouthful of tobacco smoke strangling his throat. “I wanted you to have it, I did,” he went on hoarsely; “Thought it were easier that way.” 

“Easier than what, exactly?” Thomas wanted to know. 

“Did you listen to it?” Jimmy asked, smoothly avoiding Thomas's question. “Did you like it?” 

“Of course I liked it,” Thomas said with a half roll of his eyes. He wanted to a remind Jimmy that he liked _everything_ about him, but he was afraid. Instead, he said, “What did you expect?” 

Jimmy was frowning around his cigarette with a look of consternation. “I  _expected_ you to be feckin' brassed off about it,” Jimmy said darkly. “I didn't think you'd want to hear a word from me ever again. Y'know, with how we –  _I_ ... left it.” He still was unable to meet Thomas's eyes, which Thomas found curious considering how easy Jimmy's natural diction was. 

“No one said I _weren't_ ,” Thomas answered, gracefully rising to retrieve the ashtray sitting on the mantle. He stood next to Jimmy as he tapped his cigarette, eying him carefully as he tried to weigh up Jimmy's odd body language. He added in a low murmur, “But you'd be mad to think I'd never want to hear from you again.” 

“Well, I didn't know!” Jimmy protested, turning to ash his cigarette as well. Now they were facing one another, though Jimmy continued to watch the smoldering end of his cigarette, while Thomas suddenly found fascination in the buck antlers mounted over the hearth. Addressing his shoes, Jimmy continued in a quieter voice, “I thought maybe you'd have – I dunno – taken up with someone else by now and it'd be... _awkward_ if I were to just... y'know... turn up.” 

Thomas dared to steal another glance at Jimmy, whose dirty blond fringe was shading his eyes as he stared at the floor. He couldn't think of a single reason why Jimmy would have been worried about a thing like that, or why he'd even be thinking about it at all. Again, the photographs flipped through Thomas's mind, each singing its annotated lyric in Jimmy's voice, but Thomas was still hesitant to draw any conclusion from it. He parsed his hopes into a less telling question: “And why would that affect  _you_ ?” 

Thomas noticed Jimmy's mouth twitch into that personal little smile that crossed his face whenever something inwardly pleased him. “S'pose I were wonderin' if we were still friends,” he said, his face obscured by a rise of smoke that curled from his lips. “S'pose I were wonderin' if you still...” The hesitation in his voice suggested he'd had another idea of what to say, but had backed out at the last second, amending his thought to, “... if you thought about me.”

Thomas wanted to grab him and shout that Jimmy would be a fool to think otherwise, but he continued to play it ambiguously. “You're not so easily replaced,” Thomas assessed simply.

Jimmy peered up through his disheveled hair with a sudden perk, though his words were still measured and careful. “Y'know, because after I left here, I thought it were the best thing to put it all behind me, make something new out of me'self and never look back,” he said, focusing on the knot of Thomas's tie, which was secured neatly over his throat like a doorknob that only needed turning. “And somehow, I ended up bein' the toast of the town, which is what I thought I'd always wanted. Got to see the world and sing me songs – all the things I could never do stuck playin' second fiddle to the likes of  _Alfred_ or whoever.” He clutched his cap tightly, wringing it with alabaster knuckles; “But even goin' to  _New York_ and seein' Harlem and the Bowery weren't good enough. All I could do was think about what I'd left behind.” 

“Didn't think you'd be the sort for Bowery,” Thomas said as his heart started to tick so loudly within his chest, he was sure Jimmy would be able to hear it. When he'd visited New York with Lord Grantham, he'd spent most of his free time exploring the notoriously lavender neighborhood with amazement that such a place could even exist. But it was quite a skip from 125th Street, and Thomas dared to consider what Jimmy had been doing down there at all. 

“Maybe I weren't sure what kind of sort I am,” Jimmy answered quickly, his sentence an almost incoherent mash of words. He'd dropped his chin again, gracing Thomas with a full view of his blond crown. “Maybe all I knew were that I missed you,” he admitted in a whisper so low, it almost wasn't spoken at all. 

“You missed me,” Thomas repeated incredulously. His cigarette was quivering between his index and forefinger as he tried to comprehend the weight of it. 

“Maybe it were always the way of it, even if I were too feckin' young and dumb to know it,” Jimmy was continuing, a crescendo building in his demeanor even as he watched the cuffs of Thomas's jacket. “Maybe I thought were better to hide what were on me mind 'cause I couldn't explain it proper. Maybe I thought a song were the best way to try.” He sheepishly flicked his eyes up at Thomas's face, nervous at what he might find. He sucked his bottom lip beneath his teeth and slowly let it roll back into place as he confessed the heart of it in a gentle, uncertain way: “Maybe I were afraid you might not care about me anymore.” 

The tiny whimper of the flame in the hurricane lamp suddenly sounded to Thomas like it was the score of a great symphony, dancing in his ears like a song that described how he'd never loved Jimmy as much as he did in right then. He felt like Lady Rose was lurking just around the corner, urging him to kiss Jimmy over and over with a shooing hand, and as he beheld the younger man, it was everything he could do to resist the desire. But Jimmy had yet to overtly say the things Thomas was looking to hear, so he fished for the answer instead: “And you thought sending along filthy photographs of yourself would convince me?”

Jimmy went plum from his round cheeks to the tips of his ears at the suggestion, but he didn't pretend like it wasn't exactly what his aim had been. “Y'know, it were tryin' to get those bloody things back from Lady A what got me sacked in the first place,” Jimmy told him as he nervously leaned over to stub out his cigarette into the ashtray on the mantle, nearly pressing himself flush against Thomas as he did so. “I thought, 'What'll one last tumble with the old bag cost me?' I'd thought me job here would be safe if I could get meself out of that sordid business. Finally decided that I'd like to stay.” Jimmy snorted derisively, his hands dropping limply to his sides as he said, “I got me pictures back alright, but I lost the rest for it anyway.”

“Dare I ask what she had on you?” Thomas asked, actually somewhat curious. He sardonically questioned if Jimmy had been the _“funny one”_ mentioned to him by Raymond Cooke in what seemed like an age ago. 

“S'not important,” Jimmy dodged, his gaze now affixed to the low-burning cigarette wedged between Thomas's fingers on the edge of the mantlepiece. “But there they were and I figured I'd rather you have 'em than anybody else, so....” He trailed off as if the rest of his thought were obvious, though Thomas was still not entirely clear what Jimmy was trying to suggest; as it was, it still seemed like Jimmy was looking for attention from a safe resource. 

“Jimmy, you know you _terrified_ me with those pictures,” Thomas said, his tone frank despite the fact that he left his actual reasons for being so worked up about the photographs open-ended. “It were a stupid thing to do.” 

Swinging his cap against the fireplace, causing everything from the lamp to the ashtray to rattle with the impact, Jimmy swore, “Christ, I didn't mean to hurt you, Mr. Barrow. I'm sorry if I did.” At last, he sought out Thomas's eyes, meeting Thomas's calm expression with a wounded one. “I guess I were just writing those things for you tryin' to get over meself. Hoped I might catch your eye,” he admitted, a breath away from telling Thomas something honest. “I were swallowin' me pride, I s'pose.”

The candlelight shining in Jimmy's eyes wobbled with sincerity, and it made Thomas's knees weak. Unable to control himself any longer, he allowed himself to reach out and cup Jimmy's chin with one hand, tentatively rubbing the pad of his thumb over the angle of his cheekbone and along the contour of his strong jaw before letting his fingers fall away. He noticed the way Jimmy had leaned into his palm as he did, his eyelids fluttering over that despaired expression to give way to a gentle smile that Thomas had only been able to dream about.

“I care for you, I really do,” Jimmy murmured softly, his chin cocked like Thomas's hand was still curved around it. “I really do.” 

The admission was so close, Thomas thought he might die waiting for Jimmy to say it. He supposed his entire relationship with Jimmy had been a similar experience, but before, there had always been a safety in Jimmy's ambiguity. Now, Thomas was sure that if he allowed his heart this one last maybe, there would be no recovering. The thumping in his chest was like a hammer on a piano string, striking deafening chords that threatened to subdue his words. “I can't tell you how often I've wished my heart were cold for you,” Thomas began quietly. “It'd be so much easier if I knew how to hate you.”

“I'd understand it if you did,” Jimmy frowned, opening his eyes to reveal a maudlin damper. “And I know it's probably too late to try and apologize for me mistakes, but I just wanted you to know–”

The rest of his sentence was buried beneath his tongue as Thomas suddenly dropped his cigarette into the ashtray and pinched Jimmy's chin between his thumb and forefinger, centering himself with a deep breath before he pulled Jimmy's mouth towards his. It didn't matter if it would only be another four heartbeats of bliss before Jimmy decided to shove him away for being misled yet again: it would be worth the gamble. Jimmy's lips fell open in surprise, but then melted beneath Thomas's as he gently kissed him back. Dropping his cap, Jimmy's fingertips rose to lightly feather against Thomas's cheeks like he was stroking piano ivories, his twin thumbs poised just beneath the underbutler's chin.

Jimmy's hands dropped from Thomas's face, angling his so that he might give Thomas's bottom lip a taste and grip the lapels of Thomas's jacket to tug him around and push him against the wall. He pressed the flats of his palms against Thomas's chest, though there was no need to trap Thomas with his strength while he kept nuzzling him with his mouth. Meanwhile, Thomas had forgotten how to kiss and was losing the feeling in his legs as his eyes slipped closed in pleasure. He reclined against the wall as Jimmy nipped at his lips, his tongue darting against the young musician's in an urgent game of exploration.

When Jimmy pulled away at last, he sheepishly stepped back and averted his gaze, while Thomas remained wilted upon the wall, looking at Jimmy from beneath hooded eyelashes as though he were seeing the blond for the first time in his life. “Learn that down on the Bowery, did you?” he asked breathlessly.

“Always been a swell kisser, Mr. Barrow,” Jimmy sniggered, the weight of the exchange still not enough to snuff out his characteristic braggadocio. “Had a lot of practice, me.” 

Thomas just arched an eyebrow and smirked.

“Got bored with it, though,” Jimmy said, now standing near the table chairs, rolling his knuckles over the top of one of them. “After a while, s'not so fun when they _all_ want to kiss you, and not really 'cause they bloody like you or anything. Just a bunch of slags lookin' to have it off in the back somewhere.” 

“Must've been quite difficult for you,” Thomas retorted with a roll of his eyes, though he couldn't quite shake the smirk from his face. If Jimmy's usual cheekiness was thrilling enough to Thomas on its own, it paled in the wake of the fact that Jimmy had just used those filthy lips to kiss _him_. 

“It were!” Jimmy protested, his hand clamping down on the chair he was picking at. “I'd be places and not even _care_ where 'cause it all got to be the same after a while,” he said, shaking the chair with his outburst. “I were in bleedin' _New Orleans_ , up to me nose in jazz, feckin' miserable and wishin' to God I could be anywhere else.” Jimmy's hair, which was usually so carefully groomed, had tousled itself over his brow, a forelock drooping across his nose and into his eyes. He rolled his shoulders a bit, almost casually, as he added, “Here, maybe. Like it used to be.” 

Thomas snorted in disbelief: “As though sitting around here with that old piano can compare to New Orleans. You'd be properly appreciated over there.”

“Yeah, but no one over there were _you_ , Mr. Barrow,” Jimmy blurted, his eyes growing wide as he realized what was tumbling over his tongue. He found interest in the shape of the chair he was messing about with, honing in on its curved top with a sort of half-smile that spoke more articulately than anything he had actually said.

“So you thought you'd push in at this godawful hour and do _what_ , exactly?” Thomas asked, subconsciously wetting his lips as he reviewed the possibilities. 

“I dunno. Can't say I'd thought that far ahead,” Jimmy admitted with another shrug. “I s'pose I'd just look in on you. Y'know, make sure you were doin' alright.” 

Thomas pushed off from the wall, taking a few strides towards Jimmy, his hands folded behind his back as his gaze roved across the length of Jimmy's form. “Up in my room? While I were asleep?” he asked, his voice a low purr.

“Yeah, maybe,” Jimmy said, standing resolutely in place with his hand now wrapped tightly around the chair back. He met Thomas's eyes directly, a challenging glimmer rimming his irises. 

“Maybe you'd be after what's in me head when I dream,” Thomas continued, approaching Jimmy with the slow grace of a panther, his smirk still tugging at one corner of his mouth. Soon, standing mere inches in front of Jimmy, he spread his arms akimbo, planting a firm hand on the pair of chairs that flanked Jimmy, effectively boxing him in at the table. He leaned in close enough to let his words ghost across Jimmy's cheeks, his steely eyes watching Jimmy through dark lashes. “Maybe you'd like to know if I were thinking about your dirty photographs and your dirty _mouth_.” 

Jimmy's breathing was ragged as he leaned back, pressing his weight against the table. He could smell the tobacco that clung to Thomas like an aftershave, a heady scent that recalled the taste of Thomas's lips in an incredibly visceral way. “Maybe I would,” Jimmy said hoarsely, quite unsure when he'd swallowed his voice.

“Then ask me about it,” Thomas hissed, leaning in close enough for his whispering lips to graze the shell of Jimmy's ear. “Ask me if I still want you.” 

Before Thomas could comprehend it, Jimmy's fingernails were suddenly pushing his pomaded hair out place as the blond aggressively yanked him into another kiss. This one was rougher than the last, rife with nibbles and slick tongues that warred for dominance. The muscles in Thomas's arms tensed as he hung between the two chairs, crucified, as Jimmy's mouth slid over his chin and crept along his jaw. Thomas rather liked the way Jimmy had his hands positioned so strongly beneath his ears, thumbs pressed into his throat and fingers curling into the back of his scalp; it drove him to toss Jimmy's lips off with a shake of his head so that he could breathe him into another unruly kiss, which Jimmy seemed greedy to drink in.

“I thought what I felt were simple,” Jimmy gasped against Thomas's mouth as the older man collapsed against the table, planting his hands on either side of him. “I thought I were alright on me own, but I didn't know I were _alone_ 'til I met you,” he heaved out desperately; “I didn't know, I didn't _know_.”

Pausing, Thomas drew back enough to see Jimmy's eyes. His heart was clicking so fervently within his breast, it was almost painful. Jimmy's admission had triggered his own sentiments of isolation, a familiar tour that was comfortable in its consistency. But with Jimmy there, cradling his face, Thomas could only think of the day the blond had apologized for not being who Thomas wanted him to be, and Thomas had learned that he could love a friend more than he'd ever loved anyone in his whole life.

“Mr. Barrow....” Jimmy's touch danced down Thomas's neck, loitering across the underbutler's shoulders before becoming entwined in the tie knotted beneath Thomas's shirt collar. He tugged at it with a childlike fascination, as though he wanted to both be careful with it and rip it to shreds at the same time. His lamp-lit expression kept darting between his fixation and Thomas's face, silently entreating the underbutler for some kind of directive with half-formed articulations of his lips. 

Thomas's eyes slid closed as he drew in an agonizing breath, allowing Jimmy to draw him close enough to knock his thighs against the table ledge. Jimmy hitched himself up onto the tabletop and dropped Thomas's tie in favor of wrapping his arms around Thomas's torso to pull him close. His legs dangled boyishly astride Thomas's waist, his feet kicking contentedly as he pressed another soft kiss against Thomas's lips. “Mr. Barrow, let me...” Jimmy mumbled between nips, unable touch Thomas without a measure that somehow felt like a piece of music. He shook his shoes off, the pair of brogues hitting the floor on either side of Thomas's feet with a dull clatter.

His lips still engaged, Thomas found his hands creeping up over Jimmy's thighs, the rough tweed of his trousers scratching against Thomas's palms as he tentatively ran his thumbs through the creased fabric that dipped between the blond's legs. His breath hitched at the discovery that Jimmy's pants were taut over his groin, a bit of applied pressure eliciting a sigh from Jimmy that made no mistake of his aroused state. A fog of desire darkened Thomas's eyes and his fingers dug into Jimmy's powerful thighs, clawing around a small roll of fabric that caused Jimmy to groan when he manipulated it against his poorly concealed erection.

The thrum of his pulse was deafening as Thomas took a more forward tack, dropping his wrapped hand into the heat pooling between Jimmy's legs to more thoroughly explore the ways he could make Jimmy pant. He peered up at the younger man at the first touch, sucking in his cheeks and nervously letting the tip of his tongue trace the circle of his lips as he watched for any hint that what he was doing was unwanted. Instead, he found Jimmy staring down the length of his heaving chest, looking at Thomas like he couldn't bear to wait for him another moment. Gently, Thomas applied a bit more pressure, dragging his palm over the contour of Jimmy's dick, while simultaneously flinging his other hand out to blindly grope for a chair. He dragged it by the seat and pulled it through his legs, positioning it between Jimmy's parted knees before dropping onto it. Then, with little preamble, he leaned in to kiss Jimmy through the tweed cloth of his trousers. He heard Jimmy gasp and he smirked, nuzzling him as his free hand wandered up to toy with one of the buttons that fastened Jimmy's suspenders to his slacks.

“ _Mr. Barrow_ ,” Jimmy hissed urgently, fumbling out of his coat, which had somehow morphed into a herculean task. 

“Thomas,” the underbutler corrected Jimmy with an upward glance, drowning in the blond's heady scent; “If you love me, you'll call me _Thomas_.” 

Jimmy's jacket had barely crumpled onto the tabletop behind him before he was tearing at his waistcoat, loosening his suspenders. “ _Thomas_ ,” he gasped as the older man began to peel his trousers apart with agonizing lethargy. “Thomas, Thomas....” His name left Jimmy like a mantra of devotion. 

Jimmy's mauve boxers were damp beneath the undone buttons of his pants. Thomas wrapped his arms beneath Jimmy's thighs and nudged aside the tweed fabric in favor of pressing his lips against the thin cotton, shuddering with pleasure at the hardness straining beneath. He pulled at the waist of Jimmy's high-draped trousers, yanking the them forcibly from the last button loop that clung to Jimmy's suspenders, the fastening shooting to a forgotten corner of the room as he ripped them free. Then, planting tiny kisses against the inside of Jimmy's thigh, Thomas shimmied the garment down the other man's legs, thrilling at the way Jimmy lifted himself into Thomas's touch with every breath and sigh that escaped him.

Thomas brought his scarred hand back to cup Jimmy's erection, raking his gloved palm roughly against it as he fiddled with the buttons of Jimmy's boxers. His other fell between his own legs to stroke at the burgeoning arousal trapped within his own clothing, unsure he had ever been so eager in his life. When, at last, Jimmy had been fully unwrapped, Thomas could only let out a low moan of appreciation at the beauty of it, for truly Jimmy Kent was flawless from head to toe to the tip of his well-endowed cock. A surge of pleasure rushed through Thomas's groin as he leaned in to kiss it, lapping at the hot flesh like a child tasting a rare treat.

“ _Thomas_ ,” Jimmy groaned at the touch of Thomas's tongue against his skin, light and teasing as it was. “Christ, don't make me feckin' beg for it.” 

Thomas was just drawing a wet line down the length of Jimmy's dick with his feathery kisses, smirking against it and glancing up at the younger man as he answered: “After what you've put me through, I think I'd like that,” he purred with a sly twist of his lip. “I think I'd like to hear you beg for me all night.”

Jimmy never got a chance to protest, for it was then that Thomas took the whole length of Jimmy down his throat with a single, expert swallow. Jimmy had to chew down into the space between the thumb and forefinger of one hand to keep from screaming with pleasure as he hardened to his full measure in Thomas's mouth. He swung his calves around Thomas's shoulders and pressed his heels into his ribs to trap the pleasure between his thighs as deeply as possible; his fingers snatched at clumps of Thomas's hair, commanding the underbutler's every kiss and suck with his ragged clawing. Not that the effort mattered much: Jimmy knew he'd never been brought off so quickly, even when it was only his left hand manipulating the situation. Before long, Jimmy could feel a hot burst of semen blooming around the head of his cock, filling Thomas's mouth and dribbling over his lips, down the length of Jimmy's semi-hard penis to pearl at its base. But Jimmy was too drowned in ecstasy to even consider being embarrassed at the short work of it, collapsing back onto his elbows as he tightened the snare of his legs around Thomas to keep him close even as he fell away.

Gingerly, Thomas prodded the stickiness that clung to his chin, licking his fingers to wipe it away and bear it to his mouth. He leaned back, disentangling himself from Jimmy's quivering legs to lean back in his chair, watching Jimmy from beneath dark lashes as he relived the flavor of him with each taste of cum he lapped off his fingers. He memorized the way Jimmy's undone waistcoat and tie hung disheveled around his torso, the twist of his boxers around his muscled thighs and the way his unkempt hair clung to his forehead with a thin sheen of sweat. Thomas then clambered to his feet with a satisfied glow and wordlessly pressed his index finger to his lips before gliding towards the kitchen.

He was rummaging through a cupboard for the first aid kit, where he knew there ought to be a jar of Vaseline, when he heard the clatter of furniture from the servants hall. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see Jimmy looming in the doorway, outlined in amber lamplight and naked from the waist down as he watched Thomas with a feral lust burning in the icy blue of his irises. Thomas fumbled the first aid kit, which he had just managed to unearth and pop open, somehow even more aroused than he'd been moments before. Blindly, he dropped the tin box onto the nearby sideboard, groping through it for the Vaseline as Jimmy strode towards him with a sort of raw sexuality Thomas had only imagined he might possess.

Jimmy's mouth was crushed against his before Thomas realized what was happening. Thomas's hand closed around the Vaseline jar while the other searched out the warmth of Jimmy's skin, excited by the cut of his well-defined hip, which he traced down to the thatch of hair curling around Jimmy's reawakening manhood. He desperately wanted to touch it again, but Jimmy wouldn't let him, a strong grip wrapping around Thomas's wrist to jerk him around and corral him against the wall. Jimmy heaved himself against Thomas, grinding wantonly into the underbutler's thigh, and the Vaseline plummeted from Thomas's limp fingers, rolling across the floor with a tinny whine.

“I'm not the beggin' sort,” Jimmy announced with a simper as he chewed on Thomas's bottom lip. He gave the older man a small shove as he stepped back, padding across the floor in his stockinged feet to scoop up the discarded Vaseline with an athletic bend. He tossed the jar in one hand and regarded Thomas with a sinful grin. “I somehow think that's more your lot,” he commented with a quirk of an eyebrow. 

Thomas could guess Jimmy's game almost instantly. “I don't care how you want it, you little shit – just get  _over_ _here_ ,” he growled dangerously as he shrugged out of his coattails and started unhitching the buttons of his waistcoat. “ _Now_ .” 

For all his swagger, Jimmy was more than happy to oblige. He swooped back towards Thomas, setting the Vaseline aside on the sideboard so that he could more efficiently help Thomas out of his livery. Thomas ripped off his waistcoat and flung it to the ground with a sound flick of his elbows, while Jimmy unbuttoned his suspenders and shucked Thomas's pants loose with grasping fingers. Then Jimmy's hands were at his underwear, yanking at the drawstring to unsheathe Thomas's wet cock, which sprang to attention the moment it was free of its confines. Jimmy pushed up the tails of Thomas's shirt, crumpling the fabric against the flat of Thomas's stomach as he tilted his head and drank in the sight of Thomas's nudity. He seemed to be considering the anatomy of him, his touch suddenly more curious than aggressive as he ran his knuckles over the planes of Thomas's abdomen and thighs, slowly circling closer to his erection.

Thomas hissed with pleasure when Jimmy finally cupped his balls and ran a tentative thumb along the side of his cock. The pads of the musician's fingers were callused from the constant stroke of piano ivories, but Thomas rather liked the roughness of it. Wanting to be wrapped entirely in that sensation, he placed a guiding hand over Jimmy's exploring one, folding their hands around his dick so that he might illustrate for the blond how he liked to be handled.

Jimmy was a fast learner, his confidence apparent as he pushed Thomas more forcefully against the wall and took control of the touching. Still gripping Thomas's shirt, Jimmy lowered himself to his knees, pumping Thomas's erection with rough strokes until he leaned in to try kissing Thomas the way the underbutler had just done for him. His was a fumbling emulation of Thomas's performance, but Thomas found erotic in its amateurishness anyway, a wry smile on his face as he murmured Jimmy's name contentedly and toyed with his soft hair.

Then Jimmy was yanking on the fistful of his shirt he still held, calling him to the floor with him. “Give us the jar, will you?” he ordered, surprising Thomas with both his forwardness and his apparent understanding of the mechanics of male copulation. Thomas knocked it off the sideboard as he slid down onto the pile of clothes that encircled his feet. Jimmy crawled between his legs and plucked the Vaseline off the floor, wetting his lips as he leaned in to kiss Thomas again. Thomas reclined against the wall and let Jimmy ravish his mouth, intrigued by this shift in the blond's demeanor and aroused by the salt of his own taste, which still laced Jimmy's tongue.

“Learn this in Bowery, too?” Thomas asked, half-jokingly as he watched Jimmy sit back and fumble with the lid of the Vaseline, though there was something in the expression Jimmy flashed at him that suggested it wasn't such a throwaway comment. 

The hypothetical soon drained from Thomas's head, replaced by a roaring white noise as he felt Jimmy press a pair of slicked fingers between his legs. He flung an arm out to catch hold of the spindled leg of the sideboard that stood beside him, clutching it like it was his sole stake in reality as a raspy groan tangled itself around his tongue. Jimmy's technique wasn't particularly refined, but the sensation of his probing fingers curling up into Thomas was still more than enough to make him hard again. Thomas didn't care if someone –  _anyone_ – happened into the kitchen just then to find them rutting like starved animals on the moonlit floor: nothing else mattered but the flavor of Jimmy's kiss, the caress of Jimmy's cock as it brushed up against his – the noxious scent of Jimmy's cheap cologne and sex and Jimmy, Jimmy,  _Jimmy_ . Thomas whispered his name at the ceiling, his diction slipping from prayer into fervent praise as Jimmy added a third digit to his ministrations. 

Jimmy's free hand was caught between them, urgently oiling his erection with the Vaseline as he shifted into a better position to have his way with the dark-haired underbutler. There was a trembling in his stomach that could be attributed to an indecisiveness in confidence, but Jimmy still could barely contain his anticipation – which far outweighed any he'd experienced with a girl. He desperately wanted to prove to Thomas the sincere depth of his affections, eager to satisfy the emotions he had taken so long to understand. A part of him didn't think he even deserved the sight of Thomas's unbidden pleasure, rimmed in the coppery light wafting from the servants hall as it was, and he found himself still lamenting how much time he'd wasted trying to understand himself. It were as though he were folding and unfolding all at once.

Leaning closer to Thomas, Jimmy touched their foreheads and closed his eyes, sighing, “I'm sorry.” He gave Thomas a gentle kiss like it was meant to encompass his guilt and his apologies; “I'm sorry I were afraid.”

“Soppy git,” Thomas hissed between labored breaths, for he was still riding Jimmy's fingers with shameless ardor. With one foot planted firmly on the floor, Thomas braced his back against the wall and dug the other heel behind Jimmy's waist in an effort to spur the blond onwards, quite certain he wouldn't outlast the younger man if he was made to wait another moment. It had been long enough as it was. 

Jimmy abruptly pulled his fingers from Thomas without any more preamble. He kept their cheeks pressed together as his eyes dropped down to the tangle of their legs, wrapping his hand around his cock to guide it into position, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip as he eased into Thomas. He became lightheaded at the sensation of being so intimate with the dark-haired underbutler, which was better than he'd ever fantasized it might be. Jimmy bit down into the crook of Thomas's neck and suckled the flesh to stifle his pleasure as he began to roll his hips against Thomas, building in crescendo with each thrust; his muscles strained beneath Thomas's weight as the older man rose to meet his every stroke.

Thomas's past was rife with his fair share of trysts and casual encounters, but even tumbles with far more experienced lovers couldn't compare to what it was like to have Jimmy seated so deeply within him. None of the controlling details he usually liked to manage when it came to sex mattered, and in fact vanished from thought with every tiny movement Jimmy made. If Jimmy wanted to fuck him on the floor, or fling him over the table – if he'd rather Thomas push him down onto all fours and have it that way – Thomas, for once, didn't care. So long as he was with Jimmy, he was happy to oblige in any fantasy the young blond might envision, and was pleased to think there might be many more to come.

“Thomas, _Thomas,_ ” Jimmy growled against Thomas's neck, which was becoming peppered with small bruises. His rhythm was becoming irregular as pleasure began to numb his body, each thrust bringing him closer and closer to the penultimate in ecstasy. His repetition of Thomas's name became more urgent as he felt his climax lingering near, and the world seemed to wind down to a slow tick, suspending them in an endless moment of passion that was meant just for the two of them. 

Thomas grabbed two fistfuls of Jimmy's hair when the young musician came inside of him, the sensation of semen warming him from within enough to send Thomas over the edge as well. He was certain he'd never come so hard in his life, the sheer exhilaration of it enough to leave him breathless – a mutual experience for Jimmy, it seemed, who stayed buried within Thomas as he collapsed across the other man's shuddering body to recover.

When Jimmy finally did pull out, he sat back on his haunches and regarded his new lover, who couldn't stop looking back at him in a haze of adoration. He pulled a sock free of its fastening and slipped it off his foot, absently using it to wipe himself clean, though his eyes were unable to leave Thomas even as he did.  _“Sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm blue – my disposition depends on you,”_ Jimmy hummed softly as he inched back towards Thomas with his rag sock, which he then used to dab up the puddle of cum soiling Thomas's abdomen. Thomas found it oddly endearing. 

Jimmy continued singing softly as they went about gathering the articles of clothing they'd left strewn between the dining table and the kitchen sideboard. Thomas leaned in the doorway to the servants hall, holding up his trousers to button in his suspenders as he watched Jimmy float idly around the room like still he had no idea how wonderful Thomas thought he was. The moment reminded him of those nights so many years ago, when he and Jimmy used to stay up late together, and Jimmy would play the piano softly while Thomas listened. He used to think he'd never be happier than he was back then, but he knew when he stood corrected.

“ _Sometimes I love you, sometimes I hate you,_ ” Jimmy was still crooning as he sloppily pulled his clothes back on, clearly not dressing to leave the house. He hadn't noticed the way Thomas's gaze was trailing his every step, oblivious to the glow he exuded. _“But when I hate you, it's 'cause I love you....”_

He'd just gathered up his coat and brogues when he turned to finally catch the loving way Thomas looked at him. The secret smile that had once been reserved solely for Thomas back when he'd worked at Downton bloomed upon his features, and he habitually averted his gaze, even as Thomas strode towards him, his arms laden with the rest of his livery and shoes. Jimmy kept humming, though, the song escaping the upward quirk at the corner of his mouth as Thomas neared:  _“That's how I am, so what can I do?”_ he sang. 

“What, indeed,” said Thomas, close enough to lay a kiss on Jimmy's forehead. The simple way his blond hair tickled Thomas's nose and cheeks thrilled him more than anything. 

“ _I'm happy when I'm with you_ ,” Jimmy replied in tune, glancing up at Thomas with another sheepish grin. 

“Should I be looking forward to having my own, private jazz band, hm?” Thomas quirked an eyebrow at Jimmy, unable to keep his contentment from coloring his features. 

“Maybe just your own jazz _pianist_ ,” Jimmy emphasized with an edge of possessiveness. “One who _also_ happens to be particularly fit _and_ not so shabby on the vocals, neither.” 

“I suppose, in _that_ case, I could find an interest in the stuff,” Thomas quipped, leaning in to give Jimmy another peck on the forehead before turning towards the stairs. “But the sun is going to rise soon, and I think I'd like another serenade before the day is new,” he said, lingering on the bottom step, a silent invitation for Jimmy to stay, even if he already knew he would. 

Jimmy trotted towards Thomas with that same smile reserved only for him, with no need to say anything but for the sentiments he sang into Thomas's ear on the way up to the attic and all into the morning.

 

“ _I nevermind the rain from the skies_

_If I can find the sun in your eyes.”_

 

Thomas was sure it was something even he could whistle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Jimmy's singing at the end is 'Sometimes I'm Happy (Sometimes I'm Blue)' and was written in 1927. I think the most famous version is by Nat King Cole, though. 
> 
> As always, thanks to anyone who left comments on this, or even took the time to read it. I hope you liked doing so as much as I liked writing it :D
> 
> Epilogue to follow :)


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And in the morning....

For obvious reasons, Thomas was in noticeably high spirits the next day. He and Jimmy had quietly made love twice more that morning in the privacy of his quarters, once on the bed and again on the rug when the rickity little cot had proved too creaky. Thomas sat blithely at breakfast, absently passing serving plates around the table as he remembered it. Thomas could picture the blond waiting up in his room, lounging around in Thomas's dressing gown and probably smoking cigarettes even though Thomas had firmly ordered him to abstain lest the stench of tobacco give away his presence. Jimmy had said he'd think about it for someone he loved, and then defiantly blew a ring of smoke into Thomas's face as though he hadn't just changed Thomas's entire life with his words.

“Thomas, Lady Rose has suggested that you deserve a day off as a thanks. She thought you might _appreciate_ it,” said Mr. Carson as the toast circled through his hands and on to Molesley, who sat beside him. He didn't sound particularly thrilled at the notion, even if he would be the last person on earth to ever admit it. However, he made up for it with a well-placed barb: “Though I don't know _why_ she thinks you should need a _thank you_ for doing your job.” 

“Her Ladyship is kind,” said Thomas, aware he probably looked a little _too_ pleased with himself. 

Anna was eying at him from the other side of the table with an expression that denoted she was on to him, even if she wasn't entirely sure why. She absently claimed a piece of toast as the platter came to her, handing it to her neighbor without even looking. Thomas just smirked at her, knowing that mere hours prior, he had blown Jimmy while sitting in the very same chair she occupied, and Jimmy had perched, spread-legged, panting and horny, in the spot where she'd laid out her morning setting.

A yelp from the kitchen triggered the sudden appearance of Daisy and Ivy, who'd come shooting into the servants hall like the devil was on their heels. Mrs. Patmore came barreling after them, brandishing something between her pinched fingers that was too small for Thomas to see from his end of the table.

“Which one of you has been treatin' _my kitchen_ like it's a personal dressin' room?” she addressed the whole table sharply, rolling the object into a more visible position. Thomas nearly choked on his porridge when he realized she was holding the button that had gone flying off Jimmy's trousers early that morning. “This is the _second_ thing I nearly slipped and broke me neck on today – and it's not even time for luncheon yet!” 

“D'ya mean the flat cap, Mrs. Patmore?” Daisy spoke up in an attempt to be helpful. She gestured to the mantle, where Jimmy's forgotten newsboy hat had been precariously crammed, probably in a fit of annoyance if it had been the obstacle Mrs. Patmore claimed.

“ _Yes_ , I mean the bloody flat cap,” Mrs. Patmore snapped, marching over to snatch it up and shake it menacingly at the rest of the staff, who could only stare back at her in enraptured silence. “I swear one of you beasts is tryin' to _kill_ me with your careless habits!” 

Thomas decided he was in the mood to be generous: “It's mine,” he spoke up, indicating Jimmy's hat with his chin. Every pair of eyes in the room whipped around to look at him with a varied assortment of arched eyebrows and widened stares, but Thomas only shrugged off their surprise and went back to eating as though there were nothing out of sorts. His was the only spoon clattering against the dishware for at least a full minute.

“ _Yours_?” Mrs. Patmore blinked at Thomas incredulously, then down at the cap. She flicked her focus between the two a few times as though she couldn't quite work out the connection between such an unimpressive hat and Thomas, whose wardrobe was usually dapper to a fault. She let her skepticism be known: “But I haven't seen you in one of these since you were a footman.” 

“Yeah, don't you wear a derby, Mr. Barrow?” Ivy interjected uselessly.

“What? Now a man's not allowed to keep more than one hat, is it?” Thomas challenged the kitchen staff, daring one of them to contest him on the point. Mrs. Patmore conceded defeat by wordlessly handing the cap to Daisy and shooing her around the table to deliver it to Thomas.

However, it was Anna who was unable to let the topic lie, as she was still unable to shake the niggling feeling that Thomas was up to something, and that usually spelled trouble. “I suppose that button will be yours as well?” she prodded, her lips poised around a brief hesitation before she went on. “Do you need me to mend something for you?”

Thomas craned his neck at her, smirking. “I wouldn't imply that I were as sloppy as all that,” he said, idly stroking his collar, which had been irritating the marks Jimmy had kissed into his skin. He noticed Daisy, who was still loitering behind his chair, glancing down at him as he did so, though it sort of thrilled him to think she wouldn't be worldly enough to understand the implications of the bruises if she happened to see.

Baxter, sensing the precarious mood, was graceful enough to try and divert away from it. With a quiet smile, she asked Thomas, “What do you think you'll do with your unexpected day off?”

“Oh, I s'pose I've got some reading I could catch up on,” Thomas drawled, clutching Jimmy's cap beneath the table and thinking about how his time would likely be spent doing anything but. He couldn't drain the pleased expression that had settled on his face as he tried to decide if he'd rather find a way to sneak Jimmy out of the house once the day got busy, or if he'd rather keep the blond closed up in his room and on his back for the duration instead.

“What're you reading, then?” Anna pressed, determined to find Thomas out.

“I've taken an interest in _jazz_ , lately. Thought I'd learn a bit about it,” Thomas answered smoothly without even a slight punctuation of falsehood. He let it be implied that the reason was somehow attached to Lady Rose as he pushed his chair away from the table and stood to leave.

The usual chatter resettled around the table as he walked towards the stairs, but he forgot to be bothered by the suggestion that the others were afraid to speak comfortably while he was present. He heard Ivy and Daisy strike up their age-old debate as his foot graced the bottom step, and he lingered long enough to catch a little snippet of it.

“ _Told_ you he had a sweetheart,” Ivy declared loud enough to be heard over the rest of the staff. “No one spends a day off _readin_ '.” 

“You daft cow!” Daisy huffed back with a stomp that echoed from the servants hall. “I've told you a hundred times that Mr. Barrow's only ever let himself go soft on anybody _once._ ” 

“Oh, not this about _Jimmy,_ again,” Ivy snorted, clearly deaf to anything Daisy had to say on the subject. “Do you ever _hear_ yourself?” 

“Lord in _heaven_ , what have you girls been getting _into_?” Mrs. Patmore thundered.

Mrs. Patmore's screech put a stop to the debate, and a round of laughter echoed in the wake of the comedy routine that was surely unfolding in the servants hall, but Thomas only sniggered to himself as his feet skipped faster up the stairs towards the paradise of his quarters.

-

 

END

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read and enjoyed this -- especially those who left comments! I loved writing this way too much, haha. 
> 
> Stay tuned -- I started writing a pretty ridiculous AU, haha.


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